Governing The Nafs.

Al Salamu 'Alaykum.

Shaikh Abu ‘Amr al-Dimashqi (Allah have mercy on him) said,

‘He who keeps to the Sunna of the Prophet(Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him) and lets himself be guided by it, he is the one who governs his nafs in the most excellent way.’

Jawami ‘Adab al-Sufiyya, page 37.

http://www.ashrafiya.com/2011/11/07/how-to-govern-nafs/comment-page-1/#comment-3094

Our Pork Is Halal.

“Ma as-salam,” she said as she handed me my room key after completing the check in. She was efficient, well-dressed and polite.
“Is the meat halal?” I asked. “Yes,” she said, with a smile, “it is all halal.” I was relieved. This was my first visit to Kazakhstan and having experienced the destruction of even the most basic Islamic norms in Uzbekistan three years ago, I needed to be cautious. In Uzbekistan, I had seen pig farms all the way from Samarqand to Bukhara, both being the mysterious and romantic cities of my childhood, both being associated with personalities noble in my memory: Bukhara with Imam Bukhari and Samarqand with Abu al-Layth Samarqandi, the renowned exegete of the Qur’an.
Despite what the lady at the front desk said, the first time I walked into the hotel restaurant I found out that there was no distinction between beef and pork on the buffet table; everything was next to each other. There was a terrible smell in food; even cheese and vegetables had the same smell. When I asked the cook about how they separate halal from non-halal meat, the young man stared at me; he did not know what I was talking about. I had already asked him if he was a Muslim and he had very proudly said, yes. When I came downstairs without eating anything, there was the same lady at the counter. I asked her again about halal and non-halal, she repeated the same answer which she had given me yesterday; after a few more questions, I realised that what she meant that their hotel had halal pork!
After a few more minutes of conversation, I realised that she has no idea of halal and haram. This was, however, only the beginning of the shock. Within the next four days, I was to find out the true extent of destruction of Islam in this ninth largest country in the world – the world’s largest landlocked country with an area greater than entire Western Europe. This destruction happened during the Russians occupation which began in the 18th century, and by the mid-19th century, all of Kazakhstan was part of the Russian Empire.
Most of the terrible crimes against Kazakh people were committed following the 1917 Russian Revolution and the entire religious infrastructure and educational institutes were destroyed between 1917 and 1991. Kazakhstan declared itself an independent country on December 16, 1991, becoming the last Soviet republic to do so. But just like the other Republics of the former USSR, the communist-era leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, became the country’s new president and the euphoria of Islamic resurgence in Central Asia died out. Officially, more than half of 16.2 million people are Muslim, but there are only a few remains of Islam in reality.
This destruction is fundamental; that is, it was systematic, organised, and brutal. It plucked out hundreds of years of history of these people from their consciousness by removing the basic building blocks of an Islamic polity. Russians were thorough in their ruthlessness; they destroyed mosques, madrasas, slaughtered religious scholars, and killed everyone who publically professed Islam. Compared to the Russian colonisation of Central Asia, the British seem benign. In India, Egypt, and all other lands of Islam where British occupiers ruled during the 19th and 20th centuries, there remains a strong fundamental presence of Islam in the lives of people.
The difference in the benign nature of the colonisers notwithstanding, behind this fundamental reconfiguration of Muslim lands stands a one-man institution, that of the maulvi, which is ultimately responsible for the survival of the basic knowledge of Islam during the last three centuries which have been the most devastating for Muslims in their entire history. It is the maulvi who has kept the low flame of Islam flickering in the darkness of the colonial era and even now. He was degraded, devalued, kept in contempt, in a state of perpetual poverty, but nothing severed his ties to the religion he was hoping to keep alive in a polity going the other way; his was a lonely calling. Even in lands where one would not expect this destruction, it is the maulvi who has been instrumental in keeping this flame alive
A few years ago, I was in a small hillside town of Morocco, where the sound of adhan was an enchanting experience. But when I went to the mosque, I found that the maulvi and myself constituted the entire congregation. The maulvi had dutifully called out the adhan, but no one came. Then he called out the iqama and no one came; then he led the prayer and before we departed, he said, this is what he experiences every day, but that does not deter him from his calling.
The maulvis of the Indian subcontinent are far more than mere keepers of faith; they have also kept Islamic scholarship in a few places across the subcontinent alive. While it is true that most mosque-maulvi have little knowledge of religion, they are at least able to lead congregational prayers and perform the rites of birth, marriage, and death in a polity where most educated people have no idea what to do in these situations. Imagine the state of a society from where even these fundamental rites of one’s passage through life have disappeared! Can our educated men and women, who even call adhan in the ears of their newly born babies, show some more dignity and self-respect by respecting the maulvi of their masjid?
http://www.paperpk.org/columns/our-dear-maulvi-dr-muzaffar-iqbal/
'Alaykum Salam.

The Saudi Syndrome - Are you Muslim?

Al Salamu 'Alaykum.

By NAJEEB AL-ZAMIL

Published: Nov 11, 2011 22:07

Yousef Ahmad is an American. He is also my best friend.

I’ve known Yousef for a long time. In fact, we worked together and since then became very close friends. He was a truth seeker, always looking for the Ultimate Faith, as he used to call it.
As a young man in California, Yousef changed his religion from Christianity to Buddhism. In his zealous quest to find and reach the Ultimate Truth, he converted to Taoism a few years later.
In mid-90s, he started to take an interest in Islam, and with a close fellowship of our mutual friend and co-worker, the Egyptian Mr. Dawood, my best friend (Mr. Bill Carroll was his original birth name) embraced Islam, and became a very devoted Muslim. He changed his name into an Islamic one to become Yousef Ahmad.
Now more than 14 years have passed since Yousef became a good Muslim. I know that he has found his Ultimate Truth of Faith. Since then, he has never left Saudi Arabia to go back home to America, and is now happily married to a Syrian Muslim wife. It seems that he wants to spend the rest of his life in this country. This, indeed, is very fabulous.
However, Yousef has something about us Saudis. He confided to me one of his experiences, some “innocent” observations.
After announcing his Shahadah (faith) as a new Muslim, he said a number of people went out of their way to greet him. Several added to their greetings an implied invitation. “We would like to have you over for a dinner sometime soon,” he was told. Yousef, of course, was delighted. He spent the next week eagerly waiting for the phone to ring, the door to be knocked, sometimes rushing home from work in order not to miss a call or an expected visit he knew would come.
The calls and the knocks did not come, not until months later. He told me that to adjust to Saudi culture; he had to learn that many words were spoken without conveying the real meaning.
Well, that doesn’t mean that necessarily we are bad people. Oh no! But many of our polite greetings are gracefully disguised ways of saying: “I am just being polite and trying to be decent.”
Is it interesting or distressing, I ask you my friends, that often our social and business interactions are saying one thing and mean exactly quite another?
Quoting Yousef: “As Muslims we must learn to speak sincerely with positive impact, using our words to express the real spirit of the ethics and laws of Islam to everyone.”
What Yousef said would help of course to enhance our social attitudes as Saudis. I think he is right; I think this is another Truth to our Islamic Faith.
http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article532421.ece

In the above article, brother Najeeb writes about a kind of Saudi syndrome.
There is a worse variant of this syndrome. It is that Saudi attitude that denies friendship to another Muslim who is 'Ajami because of racial prejudice and this is far commoner in Saudi society. I would like to give two examples of close friends who went through this in Saudia.

1) Brother *** is a Konkani Muslim. He stayed for some years in Saudi Arabia. A devout Muslim, he used to work in a shop. Once an Arab, typically clean shaven and dressed in Western attire walked into the shop. The Indian brother was dressed in a thawb with a headcovering and a Sunna beard upto his chest. In the course of the conversation, the Saudi understood that the brother is not Arab. Then the conversation went something like this:
Saudi: Are you Muslim?
Indian: Are YOU Muslim?
Saudi: Hey! Why are you asking ME that?
Indian: Why are you asking me whether I am Muslim? I am wearing a thawb, my head is covered and my beard is as per the Sunna. You on the other hand look like a Yahoodi.
Saudi exits quickly from shop.

2) Dr. W.A. *** joined a teaching Hospital in Abha. He is also a practising Muslim with a full length beard and his first name is W. Ahmad. When he met his Head of Department, a Saudi doctor for the first time, he asked him his name. And then despite being told that the name was W. Ahmad, the next question was........yes, you guessed it right, "Are you Muslim"?
Inna Lillahi wa Inna 'Ilayhi Raaji'un.
May Allah cleanse us of our 'asabiyyat.
'Alaykum Salam.

Syria Still Burns.



Al Salamu 'Alaykum.

The struggle of the Syrian Muslim people against the Nusayri Kafir Assad seems to be a never ending one. The puppet Syrian army killed many more believers on Thursday as they protested against Bashar. 5 soldiers were also dispatched to Jahannum by the fighters in ambushes. The UN has put the number of Syrians murdered by Assad till now at 3500(may they rest in peace). May Allah give the Syrians the strength to fight until they do to Assad what the Libyans did to Gaddafi and then cleanse all the Nusayris from its armed forces. Aameen ya Rabb al 'alamin.

Here is an article regarding yesterdays martyrdoms:

By REUTERS

Published: Nov 10, 2011 23:25 Updated: Nov 10, 2011 23:25

AMMAN: At least 25 people were killed in Syria on Thursday, including 14 civilians shot in a military crackdown on protesters calling for President Bashar Assad to go, and five soldiers killed in ambushes, activists said.

Thousands marched at funerals for 24 civilians killed by pro-Assad forces the day before, said activists, including eight in Damascus in one of the bloodiest attacks on demonstrations in the capital since the start of the seven-month uprising.
Rallies demanding Assad’s removal continued across the country. “We are going to heaven, martyrs in the millions,” sang a crowd at a rally in the town of Helfaya near Hama, according to a YouTube video. The song has become a popular chant in other Arab countries witnessing “Arab Spring” revolts.
Thursday’s death toll included 14 civilians shot by loyalist forces in the city of Homs, 140 km north of Damascus, where troops have been trying to crush protests and a nascent armed insurgency, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Five soldiers were killed in ambushes near Maarat Al-Numaan, a town 70 km south of Aleppo, and in the country’s tribal desert east, said the British-based group, headed by dissident Rami Abdelrahman.
The UN says 3,500 people have been killed in Assad’s crackdown. Authorities blame armed groups for the violence, saying more than 1,100 soldiers and police have been killed.
An activist in the eastern Damascus suburb of Harasta, who gave his name as Assem, said three defectors were killed after they abandoned military units which fired live ammunition at a demonstration of 1,500-2,000 people in Al-Zar neighborhood.
“Security police could not put down the demonstration. The eight soldiers defected when Republican Guards and the Fourth Armored Division were sent in,” he said.
A YouTube video distributed by other activists purportedly showed several soldiers in Harasta wearing helmets and ammunition vests running for cover behind a vegetable stall amid the crackle of automatic gun fire.
In Homs, activists said the number of tanks in the city had increased and new roadblocks were set up, especially around Bayada and Bab Sbaa, districts that have seen regular protests against Assad.
Authorities said on Wednesday that life had returned to normal in the city after it was cleansed of “terrorists” who have been attacking civilians and troops.
“Arrests are nonstop. If the army spots any group of youths anywhere they arrest them,” he said. Another activist in Maarat Al-Numaan said a main roadblock 3 km south of the town came under attack by defectors and tank deployment had increased in and around the city, especially in the Wadi Al-Deif area, a main staging ground.
A 15-year-old boy was killed by army fire in the town of Khan Sheikhoun after fighting broke out between the Free Syrian Army, the best organized defectors force, and Assad’s soldiers, local activists said.
The official news agency said four soldiers were injured by a roadside bomb planted by “armed terrorist groups” on the main northern highway near Khan Sheikhoun.
It also said two boys were killed in Moualaqa village in the northwestern province of Idlib when they inadvertently set off explosives at an abandoned house that was being used by “armed terrorist groups” to make bombs and “attack roadblocks and sabotage public property.”
http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article532133.ece
Wa salamu 'alaikum.

31 Hindus Convicted For Murdering Muslims.

Al Salamu 'Alaykum.

A court sentenced 31 Hindus to life imprisonment Wednesday for killing dozens of Muslims by setting a building on fire during one of India's worst rounds of communal violence nine years ago.
Judge S.C. Srivastava acquitted 41 other Hindus of murder charges for lack of evidence.
Those convicted can appeal to a higher court.
The worst recent violence erupted in 2002 in Gujarat state. More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed by Hindu mobs after a train fire killed 60 Hindus returning from a pilgrimage. Muslims were blamed for the fire.
Rioters set a building on fire in a village in Mehsana district, about 40 kilometres north of Ahmadabad, the main city in Gujarat state. Thirty-three Muslims, including 20 women, who had taken shelter there were burned alive.
Two of the suspects died during the trial, which was expedited by orders from India's Supreme Court.
Muslims account for about 14 percent of India's population of 1.1 billion but lag far behind the Hindu majority in most social indicators, from literacy to household income.
Wednesday's verdict was the first in nine cases of rioting and murder pending against hundreds of Hindu hard-liners.
With the Supreme Court ordering a speedy trial of the suspects, the courts are expected to issue verdicts in the other eight cases within a year. Indian courts are notorious for long delays.
The Gujarat state government, run by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, was accused of looking the other way when Hindu hard-liners attacked the Muslim community after the train fire.
Cedric Prakash, a rights activist, said the verdict showed that the wheels of justice were moving in the right direction.
“The conviction of such a large number of suspects in a communal violence incident in the country is unprecedented. Other cases now need to be expedited and the guilty, irrespective of the office they hold, should be convicted as soon as possible,” Mr. Prakash told reporters.
He is the director of Prashant, a center for protecting human rights, justice and peace in the state.
Taken from the Globe and Mail.

Netanyahu - The Liar.

 

The Sarkozy-Obama exchange reflects the world's growing frustration with Netanyahu

French President Sarkozy overheard telling President Obama that Prime Minister Netanyahu 'a liar' when microphone accidentally left on after G20 summit press conference.

By Barak Ravid

If a remark by French President Nicolas Sarkozy publicized Tuesday is any indication, not much is left of what was once a strong friendship between himself and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, dating back to when both men were finance ministers.
The French president, unaware last Thursday that a mic in the meeting room at the G20 summit at Cannes was on, was heard calling Netanyahu "a liar" in what he thought was a private exchange with U.S. President Barack Obama. "I cannot bear Netanyahu, he's a liar," Sarkozy told Obama, who was also unaware that the mike had been turned on and was being monitored by reporters via the headsets used for simultaneous translations.
Obama didn't exactly defend Netanyahu, either.
"You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you," Obama replied, according to wire service reports.
Obama also complained to Sarkozy about France's vote in favor of Palestinian membership in UNESCO, and asked him to tell the Palestinians to stop their unilateral moves at the United Nations.
"We'll have to impose economic sanctions on the Palestinians," Obama said.
Several journalists, including a few from large media organizations, heard the exchange but did not initially report it, agreeing among themselves that to do so would be a violation of journalistic ethics. The remarks appeared Tuesday on a relatively obscure French website that deals with media criticism.
A Reuters reporter, however, confirmed that he had heard the exchange, and neither the White House nor Elysee Palace issued any denials.
It is not the only time recently that Sarkozy has expressed his frustration with Netanyahu.
During a French cabinet meeting a few weeks ago, he told his ministers, "Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] is a statesman, but Netanyahu never misses an opportunity to disappoint us," according to a report in Le Canard Enchaine. "Just now he approved the construction of 1,100 apartments in the Arab section of Jerusalem."
And while Obama has been restraining himself so as not to alienate voters before the 2012 presidential election, his disdain for Netanyahu is well-known.
Former U.S. defense secretary Robert Gates reportedly called Netanyahu "ungrateful" in a meeting with Obama before the former left his post this summer, adding that the prime minister was "endangering his country by refusing to grapple with Israel's growing isolation."
The Prime Minister's Office refused to comment on Tuesday. At the Foreign Ministry, whose head, Avigdor Lieberman, has gotten his own share of insults from Sarkozy, there were some amused responses.
"It's a good thing the microphones didn't catch what Merkel told Obama about Sarkozy," said one senior official, who refused to be named.
Vice Premier Silvan Shalom played down the episode: "Everyone talks about everyone. Sometimes even good friends say things about each other, certainly in such competitive professions," Shalom told Army Radio. "So you have to consider the main things. Is Obama a friend of Israel's? Is Sarkozy a friend of Israel's? Is their policy a consistent policy of support for Israel? The answer to all of these questions is affirmative and, as far as I'm concerned, that is what's important."
The exchange between Sarkozy and Obama is not exceptional; it represents the increasing contempt and frustration many world leaders feel for Netanyahu and the wavering position of the Israeli government in the international arena. Though Netanyahu promised nearly three years ago that he would deliver "surprises" with regard to the peace process and implement historic measures, many world leaders have stopped believing him.
"I don't believe a word he says," German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly said recently, in a closed conversation.
Earlier this year, Merkel confronted Netanyahu directly, saying, "You've disappointed us. You haven't taken a single step to advance peace."
Other world leaders, such as British Prime Minister David Cameron, have simply taken to avoiding Netanyahu.
Meanwhile, two of Netanyahu's only friends of late, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou have both vowed to resign in the face of their respective countries' economic collapse.Next week Netanyahu will be visiting the Hague, one of the few major cities in which the Israeli prime minister is still received cordially.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/the-sarkozy-obama-exchange-reflects-the-world-s-growing-frustration-with-netanyahu-1.394448

Haji Shakil (db)



Al Salamu 'Alaykum.

Haji Shakil Saheb needs no introduction. He lives in Panvel and his majlis is held every Sunday over there. People come over from places as varied and far off as Khopoli, Bombay, Malegaon, Surat etc to attend his Deeni Majlis. He is known for his inimitable sense of humour and his invariable adherence to the truth, however unpalatable it maybe for his listeners. In addition, Hadrat finances and runs many makaatib in rural areas of India where Muslims are in a minority and are at risk of losing their faith and their identity.

Right now, Haji Shakil Sb is on Hajj. Before he left, this unworthy soul asked him to make dua' by name. Yesterday morning, I got a message on my mobile from his Saudi number. It said, "Al Salamu Alaikum. Aapke liye dua kar raha hun. Aapse dua ki darkhwast hai." Translation: "I am praying for you. Request for dua".

For a long time I just sat in my office staring at my mobile wondering at the love and mercy of our elders. Out of the hundreds, nay thousands of people who must have requested Hadrat for dua's, the Shaykh remembered me and while sitting in the Haram he managed to get the message across to me and at the same time requested for dua's himself.

Truly, our elders cannot be matched in their love for the Ummah, their humility and their compassion. May Allah protect and preserve our Shuyukh, our Sufiya and our 'Ulema.
Peace and Blessings upon Muhammad al Mustafa, his Companions and his Family.
'Alaikum Salam.