The continuity of this site as you will have noticed, has been quite slum. However the quality and content will remain until further notice. This site will blossom soon until an, or the former, administrator is (re)established. Thank You.

-Brother Aktar

A dove moaned frailly in the dark one night
On a branch, while I was sleeping.
I have lied, by God’s house! Were I a lover,
Then doves would not beat me in weeping.
I claim that I am mad with love, fervent with longing
For my Lord, yet I do not weep and such animals are weeping.

-Anonymous

Good movie. Nothing but common sense, so everyone can relate and understand. Quite moving actually. How on earth does this relate to Islam? I don’t really know exactly how to tell you the truth, except that I’m sure that out of how someone feels for another, out of universal humanity, this is one thing that others should see, that others should propagate. I think that when one has Iman, that Iman leads people to unity, that indescribable summation of feeling faith, love, unity, beauty, simplicity, and greatness among the uncountable and infinite (beyond human understanding) amount of descriptions and definitions, makes Islam what it is. When people with all sincerity describe what they feel of this strange Islam, what they feel and love is incredibly similar to the feelings of others who encounter this strange Islam. Wouldn’t it be awesome if everyone felt Iman as a true Muslim feels it? It sure would, thats what a true Muslim’s goal is; it is their duty to spread and gift the beauty of Islam to all the world.

Now really, all these arguments between Muslims and Non-Muslims on this site makes me wonder: Why is everyone arguing? Its all more simply difference of value. Why not debate, if you will, on a more affectionate and sensible basis, and not just random blabing of things that we feel. I mean there is a dialog going on between people, but these arguments don’t end. You see, people become friends through compromising each others values. They find common ground, and then find friendship. When Islam came to Earth, and the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had begun striving for its existence all over the planet, did he really compromise values and beliefs that were held between Muslims and Non-Muslims? No, not actually. He held tightly to moral, and goodness. If you feel he didn’t, then please lets try to understand each others perspectives, and intake what is more important: common ground and friendship. The Jews and the Muslims have always walked together without much problem, even though they didn’t compromise each others beliefs. Even though they didn’t compromise each others beliefs! As did Muslims and Christians, and as did Muslims and Hindus! Wisdom and true humanity takes a person over when they fully understand that they, and the the person beside them, who ever they may be is the same. They think and do, they feel and see, they sleep and wake, they fiercely love and bravely fight. Why doesn’t anyone bother to try and live so that there may always be peace, even when someone makes a mistake? Why not? I think because thats just how life is when you start it. That everything is chaotic, you enter into a world thats outside the box, when everything you see and think is inside the box; everything outside is beyond and unconfined. No matter how well you think of yourself, you will be wrong when your wrong, but to prove that your wrong is nonsensical when everyone else can think the same exact way and have the exactly opposite opinion. Peace, not war.

-Peace, Brother Aktar.

Admin Note: I’m sorry, I’m probably late with this article since it was published September last year, however since I have just stumbled across it, I would like visitors to read it, its quite intresting!

by Uri Avnery

September 27, 2006

Since the days when Roman Emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes.

Constantine the Great, who became Emperor in the year 306–exactly 1700 years ago–encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine . Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the Emperor accept his superiority.

The struggle between the Emperors and the Popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some Emperors dismissed or expelled a Pope, some Popes dismissed or excommunicated an Emperor. One of the Emperors, Henry IV, “walked to Canossa ,” standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope’s castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication.

But there were times when Emperors and Popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present Emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week’s speech by the Pope, which aroused a world-wide storm, went well with Bush’s crusade against “Islamofascism,” in the context of the “Clash of Civilizations.”

IN HIS lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God’s actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah.

As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this “war of civilizations.”

In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?

To support his case, the Pope quoted–of all people–a Byzantine Emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th Century, the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had–or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt)–with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the Emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:

“Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them?

WHEN MANUEL II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat.

At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube . They had conquered Bulgaria and the north of Greece , and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire . On May 29, 1453 , only a few years after Manuel’s death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul ) fell to the Turks, putting an end to the Empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.

During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.

In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim “Axis of Evil.” Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe , this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.

IS THERE any truth in Manuel’s argument?

The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur’an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant verse 257) which says: “There must be no coercion in matters of faith.”

How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur’an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes–Christian, Jewish and others–in Arabia , when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith.

Jesus said: “You will recognize them by their fruits.” The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to “spread the faith by the sword”?

Well, they just did not.

For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece . Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.

True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favorites of the government and enjoy the fruits.

In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith–and they were the forefathers of most of today’s Palestinians.

THERE IS no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the “spreading of the faith by the sword”?

What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi (”Spanish”) Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire ) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.

WHY? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the “peoples of the book.” In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll-tax, but were exempted from military service–a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion–because it entailed the loss of taxes.

Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for 50 generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times “by the sword” to get them to abandon their faith.

THE STORY about “spreading the faith by the sword” is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims–the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna . I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?

There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of “Islamofascism” and the “Global War on Terrorism”–when “terrorism” has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush’s handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world’s oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers’ expedition becomes a Crusade. The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences?

[Press Play While You Read!! Trust me, its BLISSFULLY SWEET!!]

I have a free summer for self-improvement, work, personal studying, and lots of other things you probably wouldn’t care about. But, I think, if your a frequent visitor to this site, that you’ll probably want me to do something about this site. I’ve gotten many comments about how my site is nice and worth-while, but I haven’t had enough time to commit any effort to make this site superb to its full potential. So, this summer, I will be working on this site to make it awesome, and you will love it. I can probably guarantee that (as much as I can guarantee we’ll be friends in Jannah ).

So, until the first of July, I need Suggestions. Lots and lots and lots of suggestions. I need your feedback, no matter who, where, or how your are. I do want to know about you, so link me your site, or your ‘about me’ on myspace or w/e, and I’ll be sure to take note about your personality and taste and try to accommodate your tastes. If you don’t think I’ll pull it off, you must be drunk or something or other– I WILL. I am filled with creativity as well as intelligence, not to brag or anything, I’m also filled with coffee right now 4:30 in the morning. I need some loyal readers, neighbor blogs, casual visitors, and first timers to criticize the life (and coffee) out of me. I’m serious, I’ll deliver. Even if you hate me, go ahead, be my guest, smack me with crisism (but if you perhaps dislike Islam, as a non-believer, take a chilll-pilll). I’ve always had ideas to make this site one of kind, awesome, and highly useful. I’ve already helped a student brother do his homework with a post I had a while back. Help me, Help YOU. If you like this site, suggest something you would like. What do you want? Do you want a forum, a better design, more accessibility, more audio, more books suggestion, more cool videos, or do you even want to help me run the site? If you own a blog, and you visit me sometimes, then maybe you can link me and help me out a bit? If you read this blog the tiniest bit, probably from a feed far far away, you can still help out, tell me something, leave a small comment. Maybe, just maybe, you like this site SOOOO much that you’ll give me detail to detail about things you would like, along with your friends’ opinions who you’ve dragged into helping too. Well not that far, but you get my drift. I’ll be going to Umrah this summer, YAY!! And I will be taking muchos muchos pictures for the sake of LOVE for deen. I’ll be taking A LOT of pictures. I’ll probably even take my skateboard there for some extra pic’s, which I thoroughly doubt will happen, but thats just me. I want to update the site so that when I get there, I can post. Post like I’ve never posted before. But what will interest you besides my personal account of the heart of Islam? I’ll be taking classes in the exclusive NY program named, Al-Baseerah. This will be their third annual trip, and it has been rumored (its actually true) that the students get exclusive privileges, like pray inside the Prophets Mosque during closed hours where there will be NO disturbances, and wholly intimate prayer with the Almighty in the sacred-est of sacred places. And also, I must announce, that once before (from the two times, which means its half possible!!) the exclusive privileges granted to students have permitted a once in a lifetime opportunity for some to pray inside the Kabaa. HOLY SNAP.

I’ll have lots and lots and LOTS to talk about and relate about and talk about. Yup, I’m going crazy, this is so awesome. So guys, my buddies like Mujahideen Ryder, Danya, Mona (Munzareen), Salim Ibrahim (aka THE MAN), my intelligent buddy at Islamicate, and all my other peeps on the blogroll, ch-ch-check it out. I want to make a site that will accommodate the needs of the average and above-average Muslim surfer in terms of reading, visuals, video, inspirations, and other lovely Islamic related interest. Heck, if we do good enough, I’ll probably try to start a magazine. But lets not get too ahead of ourselves, lets first make an awesome illustration of “The Brilliance of Islam.”

I’ll update with some more info. Btw, I love you all so much.

Youtube Excerpt:

“The emotional Dua by Shaykh Muhammad Al Mohaisany in Makkah, After Taraweeh Salah, Ramadhan 1422 AH/december 2001. HURRICANES!

He was subsequently arrested by the tyrannical taghout regime of Saudi Arabia immediately after making the dua.
This is a conversion by me to video of the excellent flash file made by Al Muhajiroun, with english translations / subtitles.
**Warning** = graphic images and very emotional! u WILL cry…”

Edit:

Okay, there might be some odd extremist notion in this video, but its all just how it is. I think, we needn’t worry about minimal differences and weep to Allah all the same!

I think its going to be a small series.

Source: Reel Opener

The following series will cover a glimpse of the life of Prophet Muhammad (sal Allahu alayhi wasallam). Each chapter of this series will open up as the days come. Today is the first chapter in Desert Rose, entitled “Read.”

Scientist from Czech republic explains his reasons for accepting Islam. He used to be an Atheist. [Youtube Author]

In the Name of Allâh, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful

by Imaam Ibn al-Qayyim, Rahimahullaah

Ibn al-Qayyim said, in regards to the description of the Paradise and the delights that it contains:

“And if you ask about its ground and its soil, then it is of musk and saffron.

And if you ask about its roof, then it is the Throne of the Most Merciful.

And if you ask about its rocks, then they are pearls and jewels.

And if you ask about its buildings, then they are made of bricks of gold and silver.

And if you ask about its trees, then it does not contain a single tree except that its trunk is made of gold and silver.

And if you ask about its fruits, then they are softer than butter and sweeter than honey.

And if you ask about its leaves, then they are softer than the softest cloth.

And if you ask about its rivers, then there are rivers of milk who’s taste does not change, and rivers of wine that is delicious to those who drink it, and rivers of honey that is pure, and rivers of water that is fresh.

And if you ask about their food, then it is fruits from whatever they will choose, and the meat of whatever birds they desire.

And if you ask about their drink, then it is Tasneem, ginger, and Kaafoor.

And if you ask about their drinking cups, then they are crystal-clear and made of gold and silver.

And if you ask about its shade, then a fast rider would ride in the shade of one of its trees for a hundred years and not escape it.

And if you ask about its vastness, then the lowest of its people would have within his kingdom and walls and palaces and gardens the distance that would be travelled in a thousand years.

And if you ask about its tents and encampments, then one tent is like a concealed pearl that is sixty miles long.

And if you ask about its towers, then they are rooms above rooms in buildings that have rivers running underneath them.

And if you ask about how far it reaches into the sky, then look at the shining star that is visible, as well as those that are far in the heavens that the eyesight cannot possibly reach.

And if you ask about the clothing of its inhabitants, then they are of silk and gold.

And if you ask about its beds, then its blankets are of the finest silk laid out in the highest of its levels.

And if you ask about the faces of its inhabitants and their beauty, then they are like the image of the Moon.

And if you ask about their age, then they are young ones of 33 years in the image of Adam, the father of humanity.

And if you ask about what they will be hearing, then it is the singing of their wives from among the Hoor al-’Ayn, and better than that are the voices of the Angels and the Prophets, and better than that is the Speech of the Lord of the Worlds.

And if you ask about their servants, then they are young boys of everlasting youth who resemble scattered pearls.

And if you ask about their brides and wives, then they are young and full-breasted and have had the liquid of youth flow through their limbs; the Sun runs along the beauty of her face if she shows it, light shines from between her teeth if she smiles; if you meet her love, then say whatever you want regarding the joining of two lights; he sees his face in the roundness of her cheek as if he is looking into a polished mirror, and he sees the brightness from behind her muscles and bones; if she were to be unleashed upon the World, she would fill what is between the Heavens and the Earth with a beautiful wind, and the mouths of the creation would glorifiy, praise, and exclaim greatness, and everything between the East and the West would be adorned for her, and every eye would be shut from everthing but her, and the light of the Sun would be outshone just as the light of the Sun outshines the light of the stars, and everyone on the face of the Earth would believe in the Ever-Living, the One who Sustains and Protects all the exists.

And the covering on her head is better than the World and all that is in it, and she does not increase with age except in beauty; free from an umbilical cord, childbirth and menses, and pure of mucous, saliva, urine and other filthy things; her youth never fades, her clothing is never worn out, no garment can be created that matches her beauty, and no one who is with her can ever become bored; her attention is restricted to her husband, so she desires none but him, just as his attention is restricted to her so she is the sole object of his desire, and he is with her in utmost safety and security, as none has touched her before of either humans or Jinn.

And if you ask about the Day of Increase (in reward) and the visit of the all-Mighty, all-Wise, and the sight of His Face - free from any resemblance or likeness to anything - as you see the Sun in the middle of the day and the full Moon on a cloudless night, then listen on the day that the caller will call: ‘O People of Paradise! Your Lord - Blessed and Exalted - requests you to visit Him, so come to visit Him!’ So they will say: ‘We hear and obey!’

Until, when they finally reach the wide valley where they will all meet - and none of them will turn down the request of the caller - the Lord - Blessed and Exalted - will order His Chair to be brought there. Then, pulpits of light will emerge, as well as pulpits of pearls, gemstone, gold, and silver. The lowest of them in rank will sit on sheets of musk, and will not see what those who are on the chairs above them are given. When they are comfortable where they are sitting and are secure in their places, and the caller calls: ‘O People of Paradise! You have an appointment with Allaah in which He wishes to reward you!’ So they will say: ‘And what is that reward? Has He not already made our faces bright, made our scales heavy, entered us into Paradise, and pushed us away from the Fire?’

And when they are like that, all of a sudden a light shines that encompasses all of Paradise. So, they raise their heads, and, behold: the Compeller - Exalted is He, and Holy are His Names - has come to them from above them and majestified them and said: ‘O People of Paradise! Peace be upon you!’ So, this greeting will not be responded to with anything better than: ‘O Allaah! You are Peace, and from You is Peace! Blessed are You, O possessor of Majesty and Honor!’ So the Lord - Blessed and Exalted - will laugh to them and say: ‘O People of Paradise! Where are those who used to obey Me without having ever seen Me? This is the Day of Increase!’

So, they will all give the same response: ‘We are pleased, so be pleased with us!’ So, He will say: ‘O People of Paradise! If I were not pleased with you, I would not have made you inhabitants of My Paradise! So, ask of Me!’ So, they will all give the same response: ‘Show us your Face so that we may look at it!’ So, the Lord - Mighty and Majestic - will remove his covering and will majestify them and will cover them with His Light, which, if Allaah - the Exalted - had not Willed not to burn them, would have burned them.

And there will not remain a single person in this gathering except that his Lord - the Exalted - will speak to him and say: ‘Do you remember the day that you did this and that?’ and He will remind him of some of his bad deeds in the Worldy life, so he will say: ‘O Lord! Will you not forgive me?’ So, He will say: ‘Of course! You have not reached this position of yours (in Paradise) except by my forgiveness.’

So, how sweet is this speech to the ears, and how cooled are the righteous eyes by the glance at His Noble Face in the Afterlife…

{Some faces that Day will be shining and radiant, l ooking at their Lord…} (al-Qiyaamah:22-3)

[from the amazing and beautiful book Haadi al-Arwaah ilaa Bilaad il-Afraah by Ibn al-Qayyim, pg. 193] [Kalamullah.com]

By CARLA POWER

For Muslims and non-Muslims alike, the stock image of an Islamic scholar is a gray-bearded man. Women tend to be seen as the subjects of Islamic law rather than its shapers. And while some opportunities for religious education do exist for women — the prestigious Al-Azhar University in Cairo has a women’s college, for example, and there are girls’ madrasas and female study groups in mosques and private homes — cultural barriers prevent most women in the Islamic world from pursuing such studies. Recent findings by a scholar at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies in Britain, however, may help lower those barriers and challenge prevalent notions of women’s roles within Islamic society. Mohammad Akram Nadwi, a 43-year-old Sunni alim, or religious scholar, has rediscovered a long-lost tradition of Muslim women teaching the Koran, transmitting hadith (deeds and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) and even making Islamic law as jurists.

Akram embarked eight years ago on a single-volume biographical dictionary of female hadith scholars, a project that took him trawling through biographical dictionaries, classical texts, madrasa chronicles and letters for relevant citations. “I thought I’d find maybe 20 or 30 women,” he says. To date, he has found 8,000 of them, dating back 1,400 years, and his dictionary now fills 40 volumes. It’s so long that his usual publishers, in Damascus and Beirut, have balked at the project, though an English translation of his preface — itself almost 400 pages long — will come out in England this summer. (Akram has talked with Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s former ambassador to the United States, about the possibility of publishing the entire work through his Riyadh-based foundation.)

The dictionary’s diverse entries include a 10th-century Baghdad-born jurist who traveled through Syria and Egypt, teaching other women; a female scholar — or muhaddithat — in 12th-century Egypt whose male students marveled at her mastery of a “camel load” of texts; and a 15th-century woman who taught hadith at the Prophet’s grave in Medina, one of the most important spots in Islam. One seventh-century Medina woman who reached the academic rank of jurist issued key fatwas on hajj rituals and commerce; another female jurist living in medieval Aleppo not only issued fatwas but also advised her far more famous husband on how to issue his.

Not all of these women scholars were previously unknown. Many Muslims acknowledge that Islam has its learned women, particularly in the field of hadith, starting with the Prophet’s wife Aisha. And several Western academics have written on women’s religious education. About a century ago, the Hungarian Orientalist Ignaz Goldziher estimated that about 15 percent of medieval hadith scholars were women. But Akram’s dictionary is groundbreaking in its scope.

Indeed, read today, when many Muslim women still don’t dare pray in mosques, let alone lecture leaders in them, Akram’s entry for someone like Umm al-Darda, a prominent jurist in seventh-century Damascus, is startling. As a young woman, al-Darda used to sit with male scholars in the mosque, talking shop. “I’ve tried to worship Allah in every way,” she wrote, “but I’ve never found a better one than sitting around, debating other scholars.” She went on to teach hadith and fiqh, or law, at the mosque, and even lectured in the men’s section; her students included the caliph of Damascus. She shocked her contemporaries by praying shoulder to shoulder with men — a nearly unknown practice, even now — and issuing a fatwa, still cited by modern scholars, that allowed women to pray in the same position as men.

It’s after the 16th century that citations of women scholars dwindle. Some historians venture that this is because Islamic education grew more formal, excluding women as it became increasingly oriented toward establishing careers in the courts and mosques. (Strangely enough, Akram found that this kind of exclusion also helped women become better scholars. Because they didn’t hold official posts, they had little reason to invent or embellish prophetic traditions.)

Akram’s work has led to accusations that he is championing free mixing between men and women, but he says that is not so. He maintains that women students should sit at a discreet distance from their male classmates or co-worshipers, or be separated by a curtain. (The practice has parallels in Orthodox Judaism.) The Muslim women who taught men “are part of our history,” he says. “It doesn’t mean you have to follow them. It’s up to people to decide.”

Neverthless, Akram says he hopes that uncovering past hadith scholars could help reform present-day Islamic culture. Many Muslims see historical precedents — particularly when they date back to the golden age of Muhammad — as blueprints for sound modern societies and look to scholars to evaluate and interpret those precedents. Muslim feminists like the Moroccan writer Fatima Mernissi and Kecia Ali, a professor at Boston University, have cast fresh light on women’s roles in Islamic law and history, but their worldview — and their audiences — are largely Western or Westernized. Akram is a working alim, lecturing in mosques and universities and dispensing fatwas on issues like inheritance and divorce. “Here you’ve got a guy who’s coming from the tradition, who knows the stuff and who’s able to give us that level of detail which is missing in the self-proclaimed progressive Muslim writers,” says James Piscatori, a professor of Islamic Studies at Oxford University.

The erosion of women’s religious education in recent times, Akram says, reflects “decline in every aspect of Islam.” Flabby leadership and a focus on politics rather than scholarship has left Muslims ignorant of their own history. Islam’s current cultural insecurity has been bad for both its scholarship and its women, Akram says. “Our traditions have grown weak, and when people are weak, they grow cautious. When they’re cautious, they don’t give their women freedoms.”

When Akram lectures, he dryly notes, women are more excited by this history than men. To persuade reluctant Muslims to educate their girls, Akram employs a potent debating strategy: he compares the status quo to the age of al jahiliya, the Arabic term for the barbaric state of pre-Islamic Arabia. (Osama Bin Laden and Sayyid Qutb, the godfather of modern Islamic extremism, have employed the comparison to very different effect.) Barring Muslim women from education and religious authority, Akram argues, is akin to the pre-Islamic custom of burying girls alive. “I tell people, ‘God has given girls qualities and potential,’ ” he says. “If they aren’t allowed to develop them, if they aren’t provided with opportunities to study and learn, it’s basically a live burial.”

When I spoke with him, Akram invoked a favorite poem, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” Thomas Gray’s 18th-century lament for dead English farmers. “Gray said that villagers could have been like Milton,” if only they’d had the chance, Akram observes. “Muslim women are in the same situation. There could have been so many Miltons.”

Carla Power is a London-based journalist who writes about Islamic issues.

[NY TIMES]

One of the most intresting videos I have ever seen.

Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, a minister, says he is God. De Jesus preaches that there is no devil and no sin. His church claims thousands of members in more than 30 countries, who mark themselves with 666, the mark of the beast. [CNN]

Hilarious. Personally, I don’t think this is news, its just intresting to see such malarky. Follow the citation to read up on what he says. By the way, he claiming to be God, or trinity or w/e, also claims the ANTI christ to be GOOD. He also drives a lexus with a rolex on his wrist…hmm, how would we ever find out the truth, oh yes, rationality.

Download it for free here!

This week, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) introduced a resolution requiring President Bush to gain new congressional authorization before escalating the War in Iraq.

President Bush, however, says that he is going to send more troops to Iraq no matter what Congress does. Watch an excerpt from his 60 Minutes interview tonight … [Here]

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of the ruling Palestinian movement Hamas has urged national unity after weeks of deadly feuding. He went on TV to say that Palestinian infighting, which has claimed about 30 lives, was utterly unacceptable. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who leads the rival Fatah party, made a similar appeal two days ago. Meanwhile, government workers called off a strike over unpaid wages, saying they had been assured of payment. Mr Haniya called on the Arab League to implement its promise to break the Western- and Israeli-led economic embargo, which has prevented the government from paying its employees’ wages.

[Cite: BBC NEWS]

(Book) Introduction:

The entire edifice of Shi`ism is raised on the single basis of HATRED FOR THE SAHAABAH of Rasulullah (sallallahu alaihi wasallam). Right from the inception of Islam to this day, there has not been a Kaafir, including Rushdie, who has displayed so much hatred and who has spat so much venom and vituperation against the Sahaabah. The Ummah has not seen such implacable foes of the Sahaabah as the Shiahs, whose wird and wazeefah are ‘la-nat’ for the Sahaabah (radhiallahu anhum).

In Shi`i ideology da`wah is directed only towards the Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama`ah — the followers of the Sahaabah. The Shi`i concept of dawah and tableegh does not bring Kuffaar, i.e. other Kuffaar besides the Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jam`ah, who are ‘Kuffaar’ according to Shi`ism, within its ambit. It is for this reason that history has not observed any Shiah muballigheen inviting Kuffaar in general to Islam. That is because Shiahs have no true Islam to follow. The thrust of their ‘tableegh’ is directed to only the Ahlus Sunnah whom they conspire to convert to Shi`ism by intrigue, corruption, fitnah and deception.

In the chain of deception which Shiahs had originated from the earliest time of their birth is the publication of falsehood in the attempt to lure ignorant and unwary Sunnis into their fold. Every now and again, especially since the rise of Khomeini`ism, books and pamphlets containing all their falsehood are circulated to deceive the Ahlus Sunnah. A variety of stratagems is employed in their literature to make their falsehood palatable to ignorant members of the Ahlus Sunnah. This category - ignorant members of the Ahlus Sunnah - constitutes the most fertile ground for planting the seeds of Shi`i schisms and the baatil of their religion.

In this book which has been prepared by the Fadhl of Allah Ta`ala, most of the falsehood, slanders, fabrications and accusations against Rasulullah (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) and the Sahaabah (radhiallahu anhum) are answered. It is essential that the followers of the Sahaabah study this book carefully to ensure that they are equipped with adequate knowledge to rebut the slanders and calumnies of those whose chief occupation is to revile the Sahaabah. May Allah Ta`ala accept this humble effort of these sinful servants who have pledged to protect the honour of the noble Sahaabah and of Islam.

Was-salaam
MUJLISUL ULAMA OF SOUTH AFRICA
Muharram 1421
April 2000

[Cite: Shi'ism Exposed (Entire Book)]

Canadian Muslims demand Gov. Intervention in possible hate speech by Christian group

    I hope someone would organize talks titled something like “Be afraid, be very afraid: The frightening facts about Christian right extremism.” I would definitely attend because I’m really scared. For your info, this site talks about the similarities and differences of Islam and Christianity.

[Read the Rest: Chinese in Vancouver]

No sound or image so captures the spirit of what Samuel Huntington of Harvard calls “The Clash of Civilizations” between Islam and the West as the adhan, the haunting daily call to prayer heard thoughout the Islamic captials of the world. The Daily Galaxy editorial staff views the adhan as the emerging icon of the 21st Century.

Adhan is called out by the muezzin from a minaret of a mosque five times a day summoning Muslims for fard (mandatory) salah (prayers). There is a second call known as iqama that summons the faithful to line up for the beginning of the prayers.

[Cite: The Daily Galaxy]

Ummah Films - Season 2

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A U.S. gunship attacked suspected al Qaeda targets in southern Somalia, a senior Pentagon official said Monday.

The AC-130 flew its mission within the last 24 hours, the official told CNN. The operation was launched based on intelligence that al Qaeda operatives were at the location, but there was no immediate indication of how successful the strike had been.

[Continue Here]

I wonder who else is terrorizing…

Reminding you that your in danger, and your in need of protection, by drilling it into your head. Constantly. Repeatedly. Stratigically. WMD’s were never found, Bin Laden was never found. Thousands of innocent lives of Americans and Muslims have been lost for the sake of a single (doubtful) video of a man who appears as Bin Laden admitting to the acts of 9-11. Alot of facts point elsewhere. That reminds me, keep a watch out for LOOSE CHANGE: FINAL EDITION, set to come out this month.

The main annual conference of the American Astronomical Society began this morning, and it didn’t take long to roll into action. In one of the very first sessions, Glennys Farrar of New York University described some startling hints of a fifth force of nature, on top of the Fab Four: electromagnetism, gravity, and the two forces that govern atomic nuclei. The idea of a fifth force has a checkered history, and experiments seem to rule it out. But those experiments apply only to ordinary matter. They say nothing about dark matter…[Continue Here]

WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 — The Bush administration is expected to announce next week a major step forward in the building of the country’s first new nuclear warhead in nearly two decades. It will propose combining elements of competing designs from two weapons laboratories in an approach that some experts argue is untested and risky.The new weapon would not add to but replace the nation’s existing arsenal of aging warheads, with a new generation meant to be sturdier, more reliable, safer from accidental detonation and more secure from theft by terrorists.The announcement, to be made by the interagency Nuclear Weapons Council, avoids making a choice between the two designs for a new weapon, called the Reliable Replacement Warhead, which at first would be mounted on submarine-launched missiles.

The effort, if approved by President Bush and financed by Congress, would require a huge refurbishment of the nation’s complex for nuclear design and manufacturing, with the overall bill estimated at more than $100 billion.

[Source: NY Times]

ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources.

The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb.

[Source] Read the rest Here.

Advice for Young Wives:

“In this age of western liberalism which has been adopted by Muslims, the very same evil trend of marriages collapsing and ending in divorce for sport and fun, has overtaken the Muslim community. No longer is Nikah and the home regarded as the holy institutions which Islam has ordained. In addition to the evil of western liberalism another factor which is increasingly contributing to the break down in marriages is the misconception of their rights which girls gain from girls madrasahs.”

Hajj: The Essential Journey: CNN Coverage

“More than 2 million Muslims from more than 70 countries journey to the holy city of Mecca to make the spiritual pilgrimage known as The Hajj. The pilgrimage is one of the five Pillars of Islam that form the framework of Islamic life. It is a journey that all Muslims who are physically and financially able are expected to undertake at least once. This year, The Hajj began on December 28 and ended on January 2.”

Muslim History in Europe: Video

Zakir Naik on Hijab and Atheism: Video

The Sudden Death: Video

A Kafir calls for unition (under ignorance): Video

Insight Magazine

Creation Museum

Check ‘em out!