In this acclaimed Lannan foundation lecture from September 2002, Roy speaks poetically to power on the US' War on Terror, globalization, the misuses of nationalism, and the growing chasm between the rich and poor. With lyricism and passion, Roy combines her literary talents and encyclopedic knowledge to expose injustice and provide hope for a future world.
While I am American by virtue of the fact that I was raised in this country, I am Indian thanks to the efforts of two individuals. I feel Indian not because of the time I've spent in India or because of my genetic composition but rather because of my parents' steadfast presence in my life. They live three hours from my home; I speak to them daily and see them about once a month. Everything will change once they die. They will take certain things with them--conversations in another tongue, and perceptions about the difficulties of being foreign. Without them, the back-and-forth life my family leads, both literally and figuratively, will at last approach stillness. An anchor will drop, and a line of connection will be severed.
Br. Nouman Ali Khan talks about The Healthy Marriage . This is the 19th of 30 lectures presented by Br. Nouman after Taraweeh every night during Ramadan 2007.
http://www.ilmcast.com - Nouman Ali Khan gives a talk at Ilm Summit 2009 addressing the issue of how communities need to face the reality of the world we live in and how we need to also appropriately respond them.
A few hours before dawn, when most New Yorkers are fast asleep, a middle-aged man rolls out of bed in Brooklyn, dons a billowy red outfit and matching turban, climbs into his Lincoln Town Car, drives 15 minutes, pulls out a big drum and — there on the sidewalk of a residential neighborhood — starts to play.
The man, Mohammad Boota, is a Ramadan drummer. Every morning during the holy month, which ends on Sept. 21, drummers stroll the streets of Muslim communities around the world, waking worshipers so they can eat a meal before the day’s fasting begins.
“Everywhere they complain,” he said. “People go, like, ‘What the hell? What you doing, man?’ They never know it’s Ramadan.”
Mr. Boota wants to be a good American, and a good Muslim. “I don’t want to bother other communities’ people,” he said. “Just the Pakistani people.”
Explaining 9/11 to a Muslim Child By Moina Noor
Recently on the morning drive to school my 8-year-old son asked me a question I’ve been dreading since he was a baby, “Mom, what happened on 9/11?”
Mass murder is impossible to explain to yourself, let alone a child. But how do I, as a parent, explain the slaughter of innocent people in the name of a religion that I am trying to pass on to my boy?
Bilal was just 8 months old when September 11 happened. He was just starting to crawl and put everything in sight into his mouth, and I remember having to peel my gaze away from the television screen and remind myself to keep a watchful eye on where he lay nearby.
After Bilal was born I viewed everything — especially current events — through the lens of parenthood. I knew the world had changed irreparably on 9/11, and while I mourned the innocent and raged against my crazy coreligionists, my nagging anxiety was for my son.
Even in those early surreal hours after the attacks when images of towers falling and long-bearded men in caves flooded the television screen, I knew that Bilal’s childhood would not be like mine.
When I was growing up in suburban Connecticut few people knew much about Muslims, let alone cared. My parents and their friends would gather in community rooms or church basements for our version of Sunday school. They were devout but weren’t necessarily interested in teaching their neighbors about Islam. We were few in number and invisible.
After 9/11, the spotlight was aimed at Muslims everywhere, especially here in America. Like many Muslims, I felt the need to defend my religious identity. I threw myself into all things Muslim, and explained and explained: “We are like you. Islam is peaceful. Complex sociopolitical factors create lunatics who kill people. Please don’t judge a billion people by a few bad apples.”
I hung tightly to my spiritual rope. I could not let go of a faith has given me and my family comfort and solace for generations.
Since 9/11, I’ve worried how Bilal would feel about his identity as a Muslim living in America. A survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life appeared in 2007 stating that 35 percent of respondents had an unfavorable opinion about Islam. Could one of those 3 in 10 people be Bilal’s teacher or soccer coach?
Over the past eight years I’ve read about Muslims being deported and pulled off airplanes and mosques being vandalized. My sister, a former middle school teacher in Brooklyn, heard kids taunt a Muslim student on the playground, calling him a terrorist. And even though I fear the possibility of discrimination for Bilal, what I fear most of all is that the din of Islamophobia will rob my son of self-respect and confidence.
So just as I became an activist, I became a proactive Muslim mommy. When Bilal was a preschooler, I took him to Muslim playgroups, organized activities in Ramadan and bought him board books about the Prophet Muhammed. I pushed him in his stroller at peace walks and brought him to interfaith events. These days, I organize local Islamic school classes and give talks about the Hajj at his elementary school. My husband and I read him books about Islamic contributions to math and science.
Over the years, I’ve tried to protect my son from any negative associations made with Islam. I’ve developed lightening quick reflexes — the second I hear a story about suicide bombers or terrorists on the radio, I switch to a pop music station. I’ve made my husband limit his CNN time to after the kids go to sleep. I don’t want to have to answer the question, “Mom, what is the ‘threat of radical Islamic extremism?’ ”
For me, the thought of talking to Bilal about terrorism is a bit like talking about sex for the first time. It is awkward and difficult I’m just not sure how much a child his age is ready to hear.
This year 9/11 falls during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting. I made Bilal watch President Obama’s five minute long “Ramadan Message to Muslims” on the Internet. President Obama spoke with respect, knowledge and a sense optimism to Muslims around the world. He found the speech interesting but nothing out of the ordinary. For Bilal, who is just starting to become conscious of a world bigger than our front yard, there is no “clash of civilizations”.
Bilal is proud to tell others that he was named after “the Prophet’s best friend,” an African Muslim with a beautiful voice who gave the first call to prayer. He is also a Cub Scout who has learned how to fold the American flag.
I did try and answer Bilal’s question. I relayed the day’s events in broad cartoonish strokes: bad guys attack, buildings collapse. Don’t worry, I assured him, we’ll get the bad guys so they won’t do it again. As I looked at Bilal in the rearview mirror, I explained that good and bad exists in every group, even your own. I think he understands.
Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don't: Traditional rewards aren't always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories -- and maybe, a way forward.
Hakeem the dream: My life as a Muslim by Gary Meenaghan
Friday, September 11, 2009
For many involved in basketball, Michael Jordan is God. But for former Houston Rocket Hakeem Olajuwon, Jordan has an altogether different meaning: it means home. And his God is Allah.
The 46-year-old Muslim's "open and quiet life" in the Hashemite Kingdom is almost the antithesis of his years as arguably the best centre basketball has ever seen.
When the 6ft-10in Nigerian joined the Rockets in the 1984 NBA Draft from the University of Houston, he was the first pick – ahead of Jordan and Charles Barkley. Within a decade he had not only led his side to two successive championships, he also became the first player in NBA history to be simultaneously voted Most Valuable Player (MVP), Defensive Player of the Year and Finals MVP in a single season.
Born in Lagos, Olajuwon became a naturalised American in 1993 after moving to Texas in 1980 and went on to help the United States win gold at the Atlanta Olympics. The same year, he was selected by a panel of experts as one of the "50 Greatest Players in NBA History" and when he stepped off the court for the final time six years later, the Rockets retired his No34 jersey in testament to his talents.
Olajuwon moved to the Middle East shortly after, having visited the region throughout his 18-year career. Now settled in Jordan – a country he says offers a "balanced, neutral society" – his children Rahmah and Aisha attend one of its many international schools, he visits the mosque as often as possible, and he and wife Dalia practise Arabic in a conducive environment. He seems content. He sounds comfortable.
Despite being close to midnight, he has just returned from his local mosque when he speaks to Emirates Business by phone from his family home in Amman. It is Ramadan and he is fasting, just as he did when he was playing.
"It is not difficult because it is something you look forward to," he says. "Fasting is really a training programme for your willpower. The concept of Ramadan is to control yourself – to restrain.
"Whether people around you are fasting or not doesn't make any difference. If people are eating and drinking in front of you, the willpower of the Muslim should be stronger. That's what the training is for.
"It's like somebody who swims in a pool or somebody who is swimming in the ocean. The ocean is stronger so makes a better swimmer.
"I find in the Arab World that when they are fasting, they say they are weaker and they don't work as hard. But it should be the opposite."
So does he explain this understanding to his local Muslim friends, I ask?
"Yes... but they think I am crazy," he says with a deep, hearty laugh.
"But it's true. When I was playing, we were travelling and all my team-mates were drinking water. To me, it didn't matter. It made me stronger and my statistics went up; I was better during Ramadan, more focussed… lighter."
During his career, Olajuwon was for ever the focus of the sports media throughout the holy month. His fasting was analysed across America and The New York Times described him as "depleted but dominating" in a 1997 match against Jordan's Chicago Bulls.
But this was the 1990s; Muslims in North American sports were not commonplace. Nowadays there are players such as Toronto Raptors' Hedo Türkoglu and, if rumours are to be believed, Shaquille O'Neal who have found faith in Islam.
"At the beginning of my career, when my team-mates heard I was fasting during the season they thought it would affect my game and were concerned," explains the 12-time All-Star. "But when they saw that it actually made me better there was a lot of admiration and intrigue: 'How can you play at this level without drinking water, when you must need water and must be thirsty' they would ask."
Despite some reports claiming Olajuwon persistently tried to convert his Christian team-mates, he insists, now at least, he simply just goes about his day.
"I don't go out to try and speak about Islam," says Olajuwon, who recently returned from a family pilgrimage to Mecca.
"If someone asks me a question about Ramadan I speak about Ramadan, if they ask me a question about basketball, I speak about basketball. If you don't ask I don't volunteer, and that's how it should be. That's what's so cool about it."
Basketball has faced a bad rap in recent years, from rape allegations levelled against Kobe Bryant in 2003 to Orlando Magic's Rashard Lewis's failed drugs test last month. But Olajuwon says the increased exposure is not to blame for players' actions, and neither are high salaries.
Olajuwon amassed a reported $99 million (Dh363m) during his career, but he maintains there is no such thing as too much money in professional sports – so long as those receiving it remain grounded and appreciate there are virtues more valuable than money.
"There can never be too much money in basketball – it's a business," says Olajuwon, who during his playing days donated two-and-a-half per cent of his annual income to the underprivileged.
"What's more important is that they can manage their fame for a good cause – there are lots of people like that. But you also have a lot of people where they don't know how to handle success and end up destroying their career. Someone who is rich, but who doesn't have [positive] principles – these people have no value."
Olajuwon returns to the States every so often – "whenever I have an engagement," as he puts it – and made the trip last year to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Less than a week later, a monument was unveiled outside the Houston Rockets' Toyota Center arena.
However, aware that a picture or likeness is against Islamic beliefs, the Rockets instead erected a 12-foot high bronze sculpture focussing on his famed No34 jersey. Now, even though Olajuwon may call Jordan home, he will for ever be in Houston.
Honour roll
x2 NBA Champion, Houston rockets (1994, 1995)
x1 NBA MVP (1994)
x12 All-Star (1985-90, 1992-97)
x2 Finals mvp (1994, 1995)
x2 NBA Defensive player of the year (1993, 1994)
x6 All-NBA First Team (1987, 1989, 1993-94, 1997)
x5 NBA All defensive first team (1987, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1994)
x1 NBA all-rookie team (1985)
NBA's 50th anniversary all-time team
x1 gold medal, us national team, atlanta olympics (1996)
Narrated 'Umar bin Al-Khattab: "During the lifetime of the Prophet there was a man called 'Abdullah whose nickname was Donkey, and he used to make Allah's Apostle laugh. The Prophet lashed him because of drinking (alcohol). And one-day he was brought to the Prophet on the same charge and was lashed. On that, a man among the people said, "O Allah, curse him ! How frequently he has been brought (to the Prophet on such a charge)!" The Prophet said, "Do not curse him, for by Allah, I know for he loves Allah and His Apostle." "
Shahr bin Haushab(Allah be pleased with him) relates that he asked Hadhrat Umm-Salamah (Allah be pleased with her): O Ummul-Mu’mineen! What was the supplication made most often by the Messenger of Allah (SAW) when he used to be in your house? She said: He most often used to supplicate:Ya muqallib al Quloob, thabbit qalbee alaa deenik
O turner of the hearts, establish my heart upon your deen[Tirmidhi]
Ramadan notes: Empathy, subtraction, and the ride
By Ibrahim Abusharif
In the days and weeks ahead, we will often be reminded of the graces truly associated with fasting the month of Ramadan, particularly its "thirds": mercy, forgiveness, and rescue from perdition. Verses of the Quran and traditions of the Prophet of Islam will be appropriately recited, in order to emphasize the great value of this prime real estate in time and the generosity, favor, and opportunity available to us. We will learn again that the most revered people in religious history, without fail, practiced fasting in some form—a tradition unbroken and now passed on to us. For them, voluntary deprivation and altered rules of consumption were more than parts of a spiritual regimen, but the expected thing to do if you took your life seriously and felt some responsibility for having a soul. The outpourings (prose and poetry) of saintly men and women have survived to our day and are frequently mentioned around this time of the lunar year. Rumi's urgent metaphors and Ibn Ata'illah's arresting aphorisms come to mind, as do the reflections of many others who speak of the various levels of the Fast and the necessities of each.
Without doubt, there is enormous benefit in hearing again these bezels of wisdom, although it's a struggle to draw from them. Our time—modern, postmodern, or whatever—is losing ground to aggressive mores that dampen human sensitivity to the sacred. Many have observed this, and it's hard to disagree. Some call it the "post-truth environment," an ethos that is unabashedly concerned with appearance, regardless of whether or not it connects with truth, just as long as it sounds right according to some market research. And yes, it's a world increasingly unwilling or unable to receive approvingly the insights of the great sages who were fortunate enough to have lived in a time when sacred tradition was a reality without a name, the natural flora of existence.
But in the end, there's a private and personal response to rituals that can mitigate the profanity all about us. By a sheer act of divine mercy and compassion, the essences of the rituals—these peculiar interruptions of behavior—have not really changed. They are able to do now, we hope, what they had done before, the same influence and benevolence originally prescribed for them.
A time-honored counsel that one often comes across deals precisely with wanting to imbibe more of the meanings of rituals. To paraphrase: If you want to truly understand what a ritual means, they say, then pay the tithe and participate more in what it calls you to do, beyond form. The larger culture of Ramadan lends itself to this advice in many ways, two of which pertain to what we can do and what we should feel.
Do something
It's often said that one of the benefits of fasting during the month of Ramadan is to experience something that poor people feel. There's probably some truth to that, but emphasizing it can have the unintended effect of viewing the indigent as an abstraction, people who live in desperation as if it were their station without parole. Fasting does have some didactic purposes that relate to the needy, but it pertains more toward empathy and duty rather than pity and abstractions. It's really impossible to simulate desperation, particularly when framed between dawn and dusk. The sheer anticipation of food and drink in a matter of hours completely dilutes the trauma and psychology of indigence. The realities of such places as the famine fields of Sudan—even when told in the descriptive narratives of the likes of Jacqui Banaszynski and others—are beyond dramatic demonstration.
It is part of the purpose and very culture of Ramadan to instill empathy that's actionable. Sympathy relates more to surface emotion that can be ransomed off with a check or, worse yet, forced distraction. Empathy, however, cannot be so easily assuaged or fooled. Empathy is connecting with others because of their humanity and their needs, no abstraction. It is about sincere giving, humility, gratitude, shared humanity, and realizing that our material condition and well being can change without notice, and each condition has an obliged reaction. The disparity of "realities" in our world are not forgiven when we show others our backs. We are a social species, which means more than tea and biscuits; we are responsible for those we know and, especially, those whom we may never meet. They are of us, and we are of them. When we fast with heart, we realize that we are in constant and utter need for things outside of ourselves, external to our so-called talents and skills. Dethroned, we realize that we are all needy, a permanent condition that's lost in our billboard world.
Sermon-talk aside, there are a thousand reasons why fasting and charity are linked together, according to scripture and prophetic tradition. They both are subtractions; one involves consumption and the other wealth. And we are promised by the highest authority that in subtraction like this, gain is guaranteed. We are charged to learn empathy and charged to do something with it.
Feel something
One thing that a thoughtful Ramadan experience is said to do is reverse 11 months of "professionalizing our existence," to borrow the phrase from Martin Amis. "Professionalizing" the religious experience means to become rote doers of rites (stiff and perfunctory); with Sunday-school heart; and exposed to pretension and self-righteousness, among the greatest risks of religiosity. If Ramadan were a proofreader's pen, it would stop at "Muslim" (the professional adherent) and strike it down to "muslim" (a person who believes and remembers why).
It's a marvel how a geologist can take a soil sample and come up with thunderous conclusions about the physical condition of the earth and the mad culture of consumption that's ravaging it. Seeing the big picture in something small and self-contained is the definition of sagacity. When Ramadan comes, things change. We all know it. It's an interruption in routine, a time that agitates a rote existence. This interruption has many purposes, but it comes down to this: It is said that if you want to see how your life is going, then look at your day, your sample, and realize (hopefully enchanted) that we are and always have been in this constant state of returning, a procession of hours and days that's taking us to nowhere but God, who made us and eventually wants us back.
To live with that consciousness and awareness of the grand ride is among the highest achievements of revealed religion. It affects everything. That awareness is also extraordinary and cannot be scaled with the ordinary. We are shown rituals—acts that are breaks from the norm—and we are taught something about them. How we engage them is really the challenge that by all appearance will not become easier. Trained to be jaded and consumers, Ramadan each year comes to us with an offer to be counter-cultural, to think differently, and hopefully remember the ride and the destination.
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Other Relevant Resources on Ramadan:
How to Prepare for Ramadan
Ramadan is Approaching - Imam Zaid Shakir
The Inner Dimensions of Fasting - Imam Ghazali
Daily Ramadan Podcasts - Sh. Faraz Rabbani
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Two quotes I enjoyed reading from Rumi:
"O moon-faced Beloved, the month of Ramadan has arrived. Cover the table and open the path of praise. O fickle busybody, it’s time to change your ways." -Rumi
"There is an unseen sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness. We are lutes. When the soundbox is filled, no music can come forth. When the brain and the belly burn from fasting, every moment a new song rises out of the fire. The mists clear, and a new vitality makes you spring up the steps before you. Be empty and cry as a reed instrument. Be empty and write secrets with a reed pen. When satiated by food and drink, an unsightly metal statue is seated where your spirit should be. When fasting, good habits gather like helpful friends. Fasting is Solomon’s ring. Don’t give in to illusion and lose your power. But even when will and control have been lost, they will return when you fast, like soldiers appearing out of the ground, or pennants flying in the breeze." ~Rumi
A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of potato chips or 875 calories of soda but just 250 calories of vegetables or 170 calories of fresh fruit. With the backing of the government, farmers are producing more calories — some 500 more per person per day since the 1970s — but too many are unhealthy calories. Given that, it's no surprise we're so fat; it simply costs too much to be thin.
But the quantity of that fertilizer is flat-out scary: more than 10 million tons for corn alone — and nearly 23 million for all crops. When runoff from the fields of the Midwest reaches the Gulf of Mexico, it contributes to what's known as a dead zone, a seasonal, approximately 6,000-sq.-mi. area that has almost no oxygen and therefore almost no sea life. Because of the dead zone, the $2.8 billion Gulf of Mexico fishing industry loses 212,000 metric tons of seafood a year, and around the world, there are nearly 400 similar dead zones. Even as we produce more high-fat, high-calorie foods, we destroy one of our leanest and healthiest sources of protein.
Pound for pound, a pig produces approximately four times the amount of waste a human does, and what factory farms do with that mess gets comparatively little oversight. Most hog waste is disposed of in open-air lagoons, which can overflow in heavy rain and contaminate nearby streams and rivers.
Just as the burning of fossil fuels that is causing global warming requires more than a tweaking of mileage standards, the manifold problems of our food system require a comprehensive solution. "There should be a recognition that what we are doing is unsustainable," says Martin.
Since 1935, consolidation and industrialization have seen the number of U.S. farms decline from 6.8 million to fewer than 2 million — with the average farmer now feeding 129 Americans, compared with 19 people in 1940.
The USDA estimates that Americans throw out 14% of the food we buy, which means that much of our record-breaking harvests ends up in the garbage.
How willing are consumers to rethink the way they shop for — and eat — food? For most people, price will remain the biggest obstacle. Organic food continues to cost on average several times more than its conventional counterparts, and no one goes to farmers' markets for bargains. But not all costs can be measured by a price tag. Once you factor in crop subsidies, ecological damage and what we pay in health-care bills after our fatty, sugary diet makes us sick, conventionally produced food looks a lot pricier.
Indeed, all the programs the authors support — from improving girls' education to reducing sex trafficking to repairing obstetric fistulas — are good ones. But their central thesis — that we should help women because it will reduce poverty and violence — is flawed. It relies on the notion that women are deserving of economic and social power because they are good citizens, not simply because they are human. What happens if women decide to spend their newly earned money on alcohol instead of their children's education? What if they spend it on weapons? And what if, even though they spend it on all the "right" things, their countries still fail to develop economically? Treating women as agents of social change risks leaving them out in the cold if they don't effect the change we want.
Malcolm goes to Alabama, three weeks before he’s murdered and reaches out to Dr. King. King is in prison after leading demonstrations. Malcolm goes to Coretta Scott King and he says, “I want you to convey to your husband my deepest respect for him and that I am not trying to undermine Dr. King’s work. My goal is to be to the left of Dr. King, to challenge institutional racism so that those in power can negotiate with King. That’s my role.” So Malcolm understood what his role was.
A charismatic, handsome, articulate Black leader who had a controversial past as a hustler, a pimp, a drug addict, a numbers runner, “Detroit Red,” “Little Gangster,” “Little Bugsy Siegel,” who supposedly terrorized the Harlem community in the 1940s and went to jail and was given ten years in prison. He goes through a metamorphosis, he becomes a Black Muslim, he comes out, he explodes onto the scene. He creates seventy to eighty new mosques in less than ten years, turns a small sect of 400 people into fifty- to one hundred thousand by 1960–62. Then, he turns more overtly to politics, he breaks from the Nation of Islam (NOI), he builds two new organizations, the Muslim Mosque Incorporated in March 1964 and the Organization of Afro-American Unity in May 1964. He goes to Africa and the Mideast. He is treated as the head of state. He is welcomed at the Fateh by the Saudi royal household. He sits down with Gamal, eats breakfast with Anwar Sadat in Egypt. He caucuses and meets and gets to know Che Guevara while he’s in Africa, as he alludes to in a talk in 1964 at the Audubon Ballroom. So Malcolm is this extraordinary figure, dies at the age of thirty-nine. It’s a hell of a story.
When I asked one student about a decade ago, “What was the fundamental difference between Malcolm and Martin?” He said, “Dr. Marable, that’s easy. Martin Luther King, Jr., belongs to the entire world. Malcolm X belongs to us.”
"My faith has evolved over the years, and I now follow the teachings of mainstream Sunni Islam. But, a part of me will always be grateful to Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam for opening my eyes and giving me something greater than myself to fight for."
"If someone asked me what in life I considered real, I would have to say that for me, the only thing that is real is the spiritual. Only God and love are real. Pain, sickness, old age, even death cannot master me because they are not real to me. Fame, wealth, and material things are empty and meaningless without a developed spirituality. We give them value and importance in our lives. But we must be careful not to value them too much at the expense of what really matters in life. Honesty, integrity, kindness, and friendship are the true treasures we should be seeking."
"Many people said I was afraid to go to war. The truth is it was tougher to stand up for my religious beliefs against the United States government and millions of people who turned against me for my decision than it would have been to go to war. The government offered me all kinds of deals. They told me I would never hold a gun. They told me I would giving boxing exhibitions and that I would never come near a battlefield. Even if this had been true, I still couldn't go. They wanted to use me to lead other young American men into the war. They didn't seem to realize that to take their "deal," I would have to denouce my religion, my faith, my beliefs. But I was free and I was determined to be true to myself and God. If I had turned my back on my religious beliefs, my life would have been like aship without a rudder on the open sea. Nothing could be more frightening to me than to try to live without my faith.
So they took my title, my financial security, and they tried to take my freedom. But they could not take my dignity, my pride or my faith, because those were solid, real, and constant in my life."
Talha ibn ‘Ubaydallah (radhiallahu `anhu) reported that two men came to the Prophet (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) who had accepted Islam at the same time. One of them used to partake in Jihad more-so than the other, and so (one day) he fought in a battle and was martyred therein. The other remained behind him for another year, and then he passed away.
Talha said, ‘I saw in my dream that I was at the door of Paradise when behold, I was with both of them (the two men). Someone came out of Paradise and allowed the man who passed away later to enter first. Then he came out again and allowed the martyred one to enter. Then he returned and said to me, ‘Go back, for your time has not come yet.’
Talha woke up and began to inform others about this and they were all surprised. This reached the Messenger of Allah (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) and when they informed him of it, he said:من أي ذلك تعجبون؟ قالوا: يا رسول اللهّ هذا كان أشد الرجلين اجتهاداً ثم استشهد ودخل هذا الآخر الجنة قبله فقال رسول الله (صلى الله عليه وسلم) : أليس قد مكث هذا بعده سنة؟ قالوا: بلى. قال: أدرك رمضان فصام وصلى كذا وكذا من سجدة في السنة؟ قالوا: بلى. قال رسول الله (صلى الله عليه وسلم): فما بينهما أبعد مما بين السماء والأرض
He (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) said, ‘What are you surprised about?’ They said, ‘O Messenger of Allah! Out of them both, this one strove harder (in Jihad) then he was martyred but this other one was entered into Paradise before him.’ The Messenger of Allah (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) said, ‘Did he not remain behind him for one year?’ They said, ‘Yes (he did).’ He said, ‘Did he not reach Ramadan, fast and pray with such and such number of prostrations in the year?’ They said, ‘Yes.’ The Messenger of Allah (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) said, ‘So the difference between them is greater than what is between the heavens and the earth.’
- Sahih narration from Ibn Majah (2/345, 346) and al-Albani’s ‘al-Silsilah al-Sahihah’
Make the most of Ramadan, we seriously don’t realize its greatness, worth and reward.
Source
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf told one of the most beautiful stories on love, unrequited love and shifa during the RIS Knowledge Retreat last winter in Toronto, Canada -
Speaking of the generosity of ‘Aisha (Rd.) -
“… she also was very generous – Bareerah was a woman that ‘Aisha (Rd.) purchased and then set free, and the famous story about Bareerah was that she was married to someone named Mugheeth. Now if two slaves were married and then the woman was freed, then she can leave/divorce her husband if she wants to because now she’s free and the husband is not, so there is no parity between them.
So Bareerah wanted to leave Mugheeth, but Mugheeth loved her. He went into total distress, and he literally was walking behind her around Madina begging her to take him back.
Abbas (Rd.) was with the Prophet (saw) one day and they saw Bareerah and the Prophet (saw) said: “Isn’t it strange how much Mugheeth loves Bareerah and how much Bareerah dislikes Mugheeth?”
And the Ulema say when the Prophet (saw) said “Isn’t it strange”, the Arabs use the word “strange” only when the means/cause (sabaab, lit. ‘door’) of/to something is unknown – and that there is no need for something to be called “strange” if the cause is known.
So the Prophet (saw) was calling him to the point the strangeness of love. Love is very strange.
Why do people fall in love?
Why are our hearts are attracted to some people and not other people?
Why love is sometime unrequited (un-returned)?
Because the worst type of love is unrequited love: when you love somebody and they don’t love you – there is nothing worst than that in the world, unrequited love. And obviously the worst type of unrequited love is with God, because we want the Love of God. That’s why Abu’l-Hasan ash-Shadhili (teacher of Ibn ‘Ata’ Illah al-Iskandari ) use to say:
“Oh Allah -
make my wrong actions, the wrong actions of people whom You Love, and
don’t make my good actions, the good actions of people whom You do not Love.”
In other words – I would rather have wrong actions and be someone who You Love, than have good actions and be someone who You don’t Love.
So the Prophet (saw) went to Bareerah, who was the freed slave of ‘Aisha, and he said: “Won’t you reconsider Mugheeth?” And she said: “are you telling me to do this, because if you are telling me to, then I have to do it.” He (saw) replied: “I am only interceding on his behalf”.
And that’s his Shifa – ‘he finds it difficult things you find difficult’. The Prophet (saw) saw Mugheeth suffering and he wanted to help him. That shows you his shafaaqa, even in love he wanted to help this poor man who was suffering from the loss of his love.
So when the Prophet (saw) replied that he was only interceding, Bareerah replied: “I don’t have any need for him”. So there was something arrogant in her answer, as she was free and he was still a slave – there was something there from her nafs.
Now when Mugheeth saw that Bareerah rejected intercession from the one that even God had given intercession, Mugheeth suddenly lost all desire for her – it was just taken out of his heart.
And at that point when he lost all desire for Bareerah, suddenly she fell madly in love with him – like a punishment for rejecting the intercession of the Prophet (saw) – he did not want anything to do with her, yet she was now begging him to take her back now!”
SubhanAllah.
- Shaykh Hamza Yusuf,
RIS Knowledge Retreat 2008, Toronto, Canada
"One day, the Companion Hanzalah al-Usaydi met Abu Bakr and confessed to him that he was convinced of his own deep hypocrisy because he felt divided between contradictory feelings: in the Prophet's presence, he almost saw paradise and hell, but when he was away from him, his wife and children and daily affairs caused him to forget. Abu Baker in his turn admitted that he experienced similar tensions. They both went to the Prophet to question him about the seemingly dismal state of their spirituality. Hanzalah explained the nature of his doubts, and Muhammad answered: "By He who holds my soul in His hands, if you were able to remain the [spiritual] state in which you are when in my company, and remember God permanently, the angels would shake your hands in your beds and along your paths. But it is not so, Hanzalah: there is a time for this [devotion, remembrance] and a time for that [rest, amusement]." Their situations had nothing to do with hypocrisy; it was merely the reality of human nature, which remembers and forgets, and which needs to remember precisely because it forgets because human beings are not angels." [Page 112]
"The Prophet held one of his Companions, called Abu Lubabah, in great esteem, so much so that he had left him in charge of Medina when he left for the first Badr expedition. Some time later, a young orphan came to Muhammad to complain that Abu Lubabah had taken from him a palm tree that had long been his. The Prophet summoned Abu Lubabah and asked him to explain. Investigations showed that the palm tree did belong to Abu Lubabah, and the Prophet judged in the latter's favor, greatly disappointing the young orphan, who thereby lost his most precious belonging. Muhammad privately asked Abu Lubabah, justice having now been rendered, to give the tree to the young orphan, for whom it was so important. Abu Lubabah adamantly refused: he had gone to such lengths to assert his right of ownership that to concede to this request was inconceivable. This obsession veiled his heart and compassion. Revelation was to recall, on both the individual and collective levels, the singular nature of the spiritual elevation that makes it possible to reach beyond the consciousness of justice, that demands right, to the excellence of the heart, that offers forgiveness or gives people more than their due: "God commands justice and excellence."
It was not a question of giving up one's right (and Abu Lubabah had been justified in requiring it to be acknowledge); rather, it involved learning to sometimes reach beyond, for the sake of those reasons of the heart that teach the mind to forgive, to let go, and to give from oneself and from one's belongings, moved by shared humanity or love. The Prophet was saddened by the reaction of his Companion, whom he held in great esteem: he realized that Abu Lubabah's almost blind attachment to one of Islam's recommendations, justice, prevented him from reaching the superior level of justness of the heart: excellence, generosity, giving. Eventually, another Companion, Thabit ibn Dahdanah, who witnessed the scene, offered Abu Lubabah an entire orchard in exchange for that single palm tree, which he then gave away to the young orphan. Muhammad rejoiced that outcome and did not resent Abu Lubabah's attitude.
Date delivered: 632 A.C., 9th day of Dhul al Hijjah, 10 A.H. in the 'Uranah valley of Mount Arafat.
After praising, and thanking God, he said:
"O People, listen well to my words, for I do not know whether, after this year, I shall ever be amongst you again. Therefore listen to what I am saying to you very carefully and take these words to those who could not be present here today.
O People, just as you regard this month, this day, this city as Sacred, so regard the life and property of every Muslim as a sacred trust. Return the goods entrusted to you to their rightful owners. Treat others justly so that no one would be unjust to you. Remember that you will indeed meet your LORD, and that HE will indeed reckon your deeds. God has forbidden you to take usury (riba), therefore all riba obligation shall henceforth be waived. Your capital , however, is yours to keep. You will neither inflict nor suffer inequity. God has judged that there shall be no riba and that all the riba due to `Abbas ibn `Abd al Muttalib shall henceforth be waived.
Every right arising out of homicide in pre-Islamic days is henceforth waived and the first such right that I waive is that arising from the murder of Rabi`ah ibn al Harith ibn `Abd al Muttalib.
O Men, the Unbelievers indulge in tampering with the calendar in order to make permissible that which God forbade, and to forbid that which God has made permissible. With God the months are twelve in number. Four of them are sacred, three of these are successive and one occurs singly between the months of Jumada and Sha`ban. Beware of the devil, for the safety of your religion. He has lost all hope that he will ever be able to lead you astray in big things, so beware of following him in small things.
O People, it is true that you have certain rights over your women, but they also have rights over you. Remember that you have taken them as your wives only under God's trust and with His permission. If they abide by your right then to them belongs the right to be fed and clothed in kindness. Treat your women well and be kind to them, for they are your partners and committed helpers. It is your right and they do not make friends with anyone of whom you do not approve, as well as never to be unchaste...
O People, listen to me in earnest, worship God (The One Creator of the Universe), perform your five daily prayers (Salah), fast during the month of Ramadan, and give your financial obligation (zakah) of your wealth. Perform Hajj if you can afford to.
All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to yourselves.
Remember, one day you will appear before God (The Creator) and you will answer for your deeds. So beware, do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone.
O People, no prophet or messenger will come after me and no new faith will be born. Reason well, therefore, O People, and understand words which I convey to you. I am leaving you with the Book of God (the QUR'AN*) and my SUNNAH (the life style and the behavioral mode of the Prophet), if you follow them you will never go astray.
All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listen to me directly. Be my witness O God, that I have conveyed your message to your people.
*The Qur'an: Revealed to Prophet Muhammad during the period from 610-632 AC. The first five verses revealed are: (1) Read in the name of your Lord, Who created. (2) Created man out of a clot that clings (in the womb). (3) Read and your Lord is the Most Bountiful. (4) Who taught by the pen. (5) Taught man that which he knew not.
"Eat and drink from the provision of Allah, and do not commit abuse on the Earth," says the Koran, the holy book of the Muslim faith. Though Islam's tenets contain similar calls for revering and protecting nature as does the Bible, the idea of Muslim environmentalism is far less known than that of Christian evangelicals promoting "creation care." No wonder a short film about a young Muslim scuba diver comes across as such a breath of fresh air--or, perhaps more appropriately given the subject, a cool drink of water.
San Francisco-based director Rolla Selbak's Green Blue Sea won first prize in the "Youth Story" category of the second annual "One Nation, Many Voices" online film contest. Sponsored by Link TV and the nonprofit group One Nation, the competition aims to bring "compelling stories about the American Muslim experience" to a larger audience and broaden people's images of who Muslims are. This film does a bit of the same for stereotypes about environmentalists as well.
A new generation of Muslim builders and designers, as well as non-Muslims designing for Muslim groups, often in Europe or North America, are updating the mosque for the 21st century, sparking not just a hugely creative period in Islamic design, but one riven by controversy. The disputes over modern mosques echo larger debates taking place in the Islamic world today about gender, power and, particularly in immigrant communities, Islam's place in Western societies.
The most daring buildings are dreamt up by second- and third-generation Muslim immigrants, who have the confidence and cash to build stone-and-glass symbols of Islam's growing strength in places like Europe. Simply importing traditional mosque architecture "doesn't express loyalty to your current surroundings," says Zulfiqar Husain, honorary secretary of an innovative new eco-mosque in Manchester, England. "It almost expresses that you want to be separate from the society you live in."
Particularly in Europe, mosques have become the architectural equivalent of the veil: visible signs of Islam's presence and thus sites for tension between Muslims and non-Muslim traditionalists.
Unsurprisingly, it's immigrant Muslim communities that are pushing the biggest changes. "The Western mosque is fast becoming the site of contestation between the kind of Muslims who espouse the traditional mosque, and those who want to win proportionate space for women," says MIT's Khalidi. "The second generation are the ones demanding, and often getting, that kind of space." Architectural historian Khan estimates that until recently, North American mosques gave only about 15% of their space to women. Over the past five years or so, the space women have access to has increased to at least 50%.
In the main hall hangs a bronze chandelier, dangling with hand-blown glass raindrops — a visual allusion to the Koranic verse that says Allah's light should fall on believers like drops of rain.
Author Shelina Zahra Janmohamed sits down with us to discuss the issues brought up in her new book Love in a Headscarf, which documents Janmohamed's search for a partner in a landscaped blurred by culture clashes, mixed identities, and double standards.
Of course, it’s everyone’s personal choice as to who they marry, but it raises questions to me about the nature of that relationship and what men are expecting from their wives and what women are expecting from their husbands. Certainly in my experience, there was a lot of cultural discussion that goes on with women on not just how to get married but how to be married and how to maintain that relationship and what your expectations should be and about being realistic.
And I always found it really unfair that men never seemed to get that same kind of discussion. When we would go to weddings or mehndi parties or sit around with the aunties, there would be a lot of discussion about being married. But boys never got that. I kind of felt it was very unfair that women had the burden of carrying the relationship and men could kind of just swim along and it would all be fine because women would – I was certainly advised to – give in for the first 2 to 5 years and then it would all be fine.
As I explored more this idea of Divine love, I started to understand that the love you have for your partner is actually part of that greater Divine love. And you need to see yourself through that other person’s eyes to realise where you fit in to the bigger scheme of things. Nobody ever told me that.
...if you want somebody to get married, there’s no point in telling them just to accept anyone. You’ve actually got to take some responsibility to help them and not just send any old anyone their way. Which I think was, perhaps, the traditional way. “Oh, she’s not married. Anyone will do.”
But I think there are similar problems among men. They’ve just been less eloquent and lyrical about them than women. I think we need to start to hear from them and what exactly is going on and where they are in this picture.
From what you’ve gone though, this process seems to be an accelerated process of learning, if taken seriously. Learning about yourself and, on both sides, revealing who you are. Like you said, it’s the one time where you actually have to put your cards on the table and say, “This is exactly who I am.” If you have secrets at that point, then you’re putting your future marriage at risk.
It does take a certain amount of self-awareness, though. You have to know what you’re saying you are is actually what you are.
Are you optimistic that in generations to come, this situation will change?
I’m not very hopeful, actually. Because it seems that it’s women who are perpetuating it. That’s what really concerns me. Because all that will happen is that there will be a lot of single women who are older, very well educated, very sharp, very religious. It is heartbreaking. The men who are their equivalents, many of them who are not married, many of them don’t want to marry women of that age. And the mothers and matchmakers are encouraging them.
If the mothers [of sons] are saying, “Well, we’re going to take you back home to marry your wife” or “you can do what you like, if you’re a boy, until you get married. If you’re a woman, you need to maintain your reputation,” then I don’t really see how that can ever change unless there are mothers of sons who are brave enough to change that. And men themselves who are brave enough to change it.
Appealing ideas are often simple: how much of a letter can be removed while maintaining readability? After extensive testing with all kinds of shapes, the best results were achieved using small circles. After lots of late hours (and coffee) this resulted in a font that uses up to 20% less ink. Free to download, free to use.
From The Australian Comedy Chat Show "Salam Cafe" a short comedy piece on muslims in the workplace.
That sentiment is echoed around the Muslim world. In many of the scores of countries that are predominantly Muslim, the latest generation of activists is redefining society in novel ways. This new soft revolution is distinct from three earlier waves of change--the Islamic revival of the 1970s, the rise of extremism in the 1980s and the growth of Muslim political parties in the 1990s.
Today's revolution is more vibrantly Islamic than ever. Yet it is also decidedly antijihadist and ambivalent about Islamist political parties. Culturally, it is deeply conservative, but its goal is to adapt to the 21st century. Politically, it rejects secularism and Westernization but craves changes compatible with modern global trends. The soft revolution is more about groping for identity and direction than expressing piety. The new revolutionaries are synthesizing Koranic values with the ways of life spawned by the Internet, satellite television and Facebook. For them, Islam, you might say, is the path to change rather than the goal itself.
Disillusioned with extremists who can destroy but who fail to construct alternatives that improve daily life, members of the post-9/11 generation are increasingly relying on Islamic values rather than on a religion-based ideology to advance their aims. And importantly, the soft revolution has generated a new self-confidence among Muslims and a sense that the answers to their problems lie within their own faith and community rather than in the outside world. The revolution is about reform in a conservative package.
Traditional clerics deride al-Shugairi, 35, and other televangelists for preaching "easy Islam," "yuppie Islam," even "Western Islam." But his message actually reflects a deepening conservatism in the Islamic world, even as activists use contemporary examples and modern technology to make their case. One of al-Shugairi's programs on happiness focused on Elvis Presley, a man with fame, talent and fortune but who died young. Life without deep spirituality, al-Shugairi preaches, is empty.
Politics is not the only focus of the soft revolution. Its most fundamental impact, indeed, may be on the faith itself.
...
Later this year, the Turkish scholars are expected to publish six volumes that reject thousands of Islam's most controversial practices, from stoning adulterers to honor killings. Some hadith, the scholars contend, are unsubstantiated; others were just invented to manipulate society.
This is perhaps the most intellectually active period for the faith since the height of Islamic scholarship in the Middle Ages. "There is more self-confidence in the Islamic world about dealing with reason, constitutionalism, science and other big issues that define modern society," says Ibrahim Kalin of the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research in Ankara. "The West is no longer the only worldview to look up to. There are other ways of sharing the world and negotiating your place in it."
Many young Muslims are angry at the outside world's support of corrupt and autocratic regimes despite pledges to push for democracy after 9/11. "Most of the young feel the West betrayed its promises," says Dhillon, of the Brookings Institution. Muslims fume that a few perpetrators of violence have led the outside world to suspect a whole generation of supporting terrorism. "The only source of identity they have is being attacked," Dhillon says. The post-9/11 generation has been further shaped by wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza, all of which Washington played a direct or indirect role in.
Terry Holdbrooks stood watch over prisoners at Gitmo. What he saw made him adopt their faith.
See more at www.NewMuslimCool.com. Coming to national PBS this June, NEW MUSLIM COOl follows three years in the lives of Puerto Rican American Muslim hip-hop artist Hamza Pérez, his family, and community. Taking viewers on a ride through the streets, projects, and jail cells of urban America, the film follows Hamza's spiritual journey as he finds new discoveries and friends in some surprising places -- where we can all see ourselves reflected in a world that never stops changing.
A Gallup poll of Muslims in the United States has found that they are far more likely than people in Muslim countries to see themselves as thriving.
...
And yet, within the United States, Muslims are the least content religious group, when compared with Jews, Mormons, Protestants and Roman Catholics.
Gallup researchers say that is because the largest segment of American Muslims are African-Americans (35 percent, including first-generation immigrants), and they generally report lower levels of income, education, employment and well-being than other Americans.
A Gallup poll of Muslims in the United States has found that they are far more likely than people in Muslim countries to see themselves as thriving.
American Muslim women, contrary to stereotype, are more likely than American Muslim men to have college and post-graduate degrees.
Muslim women in the United States attend mosque as frequently as Muslim men — a contrast with many Muslim countries where the mosques are primarily for men. American Muslims are generally very religious, saying that religion is an important part of their daily lives (80 percent), more than any other group except Mormons (85 percent). The figure for Americans in general is 65 percent.
Lower percentages of Muslims register to vote or volunteer their time than adherents of other faiths.
DC's Imam Magid on the tragic Beheading of Sister Aasiya (Zubair) Hassan
By Imam Mohamed Hagmagid Ali
Executive Director, ADAMS Center
Vice-President, The Islamic Society of North America
The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is saddened and shocked by the news of the loss of one of our respected sisters, Aasiya Hassan whose life was taken violently. To God we belong and to Him we return (Qur'an 2:156). We pray that she find peace in God's infinite Mercy, and our prayers and sympathies are with sister Aasiya's family. Our prayers are also with the Muslim community of Buffalo who have been devastated by the loss of their beloved sister and the shocking nature of this incident.
This is a wake up call to all of us, that violence against women is real and can not be ignored. It must be addressed collectively by every member of our community. Several times each day in America, a woman is abused or assaulted. Domestic violence is a behavior that knows no boundaries of religion, race, ethnicity, or social status. Domestic violence occurs in every community. The Muslim community is not exempt from this issue. We, the Muslim community, need to take a strong stand against domestic violence. Unfortunately, some of us ignore such problems in our community, wanting to think that it does not occur among Muslims or we downgrade its seriousness.
I call upon my fellow imams and community leaders to never second-guess a woman who comes to us indicating that she feels her life to be in danger. We should provide support and help to protect the victims of domestic violence by providing for them a safe place and inform them of their rights as well as refer them to social service providers in our areas.
Marriage is a relationship that should be based on love, mutual respect and kindness. No one who experiences a marriage that is built on these principles would pretend that their life is in danger. We must respond to all complaints or reports of abuse as genuine and we must take appropriate and immediate action to ensure the victim's safety, as well as the safety of any children that may be involved.
Women who seek divorce from their spouses because of physical abuse should get full support from the community and should not be viewed as someone who has brought shame to herself or her family. The shame is on the person who committed the act of violence or abuse. Our community needs to take a strong stand against abusive spouses. We should not make it easy for people who are known to abuse to remarry if they have already victimized someone. We should support people who work against domestic violence in our community, whether they are educators, social service providers, community leaders, or other professionals.
Our community needs to take strong stand against abusive spouses and we should not make it easy for them to remarry if they chose a path of abusive behavior. We should support people who work against domestic violence in our community, whether they are educators or social service providers. As Allah says in the Qur'an: "O ye who believe! Stand firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor: for Allah can best protect both. Follow not the lusts (of your hearts), lest you swerve, and if you distort (justice) or decline to do justice, verily Allah is well-acquainted with all that you do" (4:136).
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) never hit a women or child in his life. The purpose of marriage is to bring peace and tranquility between two people, not fear, intimidation, belittling, controlling, or demonizing. Allah the All-Mighty says in the Qur'an: "Among His signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that ye may dwell in tranquility with them and He has put love and mercy between your (hearts): verily in that are signs for those who reflect" (30:21),
We must make it a priority to teach our young men in the community what it means to be a good husband and what the role the husband has as a protector of his family. The husband is not one who terrorizes or does harm and jeopardizes the safety of his family. At the same time, we must teach our young women not to accept abuse in any way, and to come forward if abuse occurs in the marriage. They must feel that they are able to inform those who are in authority and feel comfortable confiding in the imams and social workers of our communities.
Community and family members should support a woman in her decision to leave a home where her life is threatened and provide shelter and safety for her. No imam, mosque leader or social worker should suggest that she return to such a relationship and to be patient if she feels the relationship is abusive. Rather they should help and empower her to stand up for her rights and to be able to make the decision of protecting herself against her abuser without feeling she has done something wrong, regardless of the status of the abuser in the community.
A man's position in the community should not affect the imam's decision to help a woman in need. Many disasters that take place in our community could have been prevented if those being abused were heard. Domestic violence is not a private matter. Any one who abuses their spouse should know that their business becomes the business of the community and it is our responsibility to do something about it. She needs to tell someone and seek advice and protection.
Community leaders should also be aware that those who isolate their spouses are more likely to also be physically abusive, as isolation is in its own way a form of abuse. Some of the abusers use the abuse itself to silence the women, by telling her "If you tell people I abused you, think how people will see you, a well-known person being abused. You should keep it private."
Therefore, to our sisters, we say: your honor is to live a dignified life, not to put on the face that others want to see. The way that we measure the best people among us in the community is to see how they treat their families. It is not about how much money one makes, or how much involvement they have in the community, or the name they make for themselves. Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) said, "The best among you are those who are best to their families."
It was a comfort for me to see a group of imams in our local community, as well as in the MANA conference signing a declaration promising to eradicate domestic violence in our community. Healthy marriages should be part of a curriculum within our youth programs, MSA conferences, and seminars as well as part of our adult programs in our masajid and in our khutbahs.
The Islamic Society of North America has done many training workshops for imams on combating domestic violence, as has the Islamic Social Service Associate and Peaceful Families Project. Organizations, such as FAITH Social Services in Herndon, Virginia, serve survivors of domestic violence. All of these organizations can serve as resources for those who seek to know more about the issues of domestic violence.
Faith Trust Institute, one of the largest interfaith organizations, with Peaceful Families Project, has produced a DVD in which many scholars come together to address this issue. I call on my fellow imams and social workers to use this DVD for training others on the issues of domestic violence. (For information, go to the website: http://www.faithtrustinstitute.org/). For more information, or to access resources and materials about domestic violence, please visit http://www.peacefulfamilies.org.
In conclusion, Allah says in the Qur'an "O my son! Establish regular prayer, enjoin what is just, and forbid what is wrong; and bear with patient constancy whatever betide thee; for this is firmness (of purpose) in (the conduct of) affairs" (31:17). Let us pray that Allah will help us to stand for what is right and leave what is evil and to promote healthy marriages and peaceful family environments. Let us work together to prevent domestic violence and abuse and especially, violence against women.
I pray that she is brought to justice. May Allah have mercy on Aasiya and console her family and loved ones. Please make du'a for this women, whose promising life was cut too short. I hope that Muslim leaders heed this call and that more of us support women and children who are in anger.
