By Amin, on November 12th, 2009%
The murderous act of US Army Major Nidal Hasan has put the American Muslim community in the spotlight again, for all the wrong reasons. This single insane act will have repercussions far beyond US borders, Muslims in the West will now be viewed with more suspicion and a potential fifth column.
As we saw in the aftermath of 9/11, the initial horror turns to anger and then looking for people to blame. The latest bogeyman of the West, the scholar of hate, happens to be Imam Anwar al-Awlaki. He fits the caricature perfectly, a dark-skinned, turbaned and long bearded Arab. Just when messages from Usama bin Ladin are becoming infrequent and obscure, up pops Anwar al-Awlaki (coincidentally also an ethnic Yemeni) to fill this void, rather convenient one might suspect? Continue reading A Shakespearean tragedy, the case of Anwar al-Awlaki
By Abdullah Hasan, on November 5th, 2009%
The environment children are raised in plays an essential role even in cultivating a perception of the reality. Our surroundings – social, political and even topographical – have an impact on our human character. Society moulds much of our outlook and the way in which we perceive and view things; no matter how hard one may exert in trying to be indifferent he/she will be influenced by these elements, and will also determine how they interact, behave and communicate with each other.*
This may be true of those [Muslims] who harbour some abhorrence to the teachings of Islam, hence slowly and inevitably leave Islam completely – Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s case is emblematic, in my opinion, of this crisis. Several factors contributed to this situation – one significant cause is that they were not educated on the true and authentic Islam which is based on justice and equality, but rather much of the wrongdoings that were committed against them were justified as being Islamic by their perpetrators. Continue reading To be a Mufti
By Blog Editor, on November 5th, 2009%
We hope you will appreciate our continuing efforts to improve the blog, and most importantly your reading and participation experience.
We would like to thank all the blog readers for their participation. We welcome and encourage comments on the blog posts, however many readers do not like to see comments reaching into many hundreds or even thousands of words!
Some readers are discouraged from commenting themselves (or reading comments at all) when they see very long comments left by others. Very long comments also dilute the impact of the author’s original post by relegating it to a small proportion of the overall content on the page. Hence, we have set a new limit of 1,000 1,500 (one thousand and five hundred) characters for each comment – effective immediately. Continue reading Blog Update
By Shafi, on November 2nd, 2009%
An extract from Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi:
In calling (da’wa) others with wisdom and beautiful preaching and arguing with that which is best, which the Muslims are required to do – it is advisable (particularly in the age of globalisation) to not address those whom we differ with, as kuffar, even though we believe that they are so. This is especially in the case of the People of the Book (Christians and Jews).
This is so due to two reasons
Firstly: The word kuffar has a number of meanings some of which we definitely do not intend [when addressing People of the Book]. From amongst these meanings is to deny Allah, his prophets and the abode of the hereafter (Jannah). As is the case with materialists who do not believe in anything beyond that which can be sensed and so do not believe in the existence of a Lord, or prophets, or the hereafter.
When we talk about the ‘People of the Book’ we do not intend to describe them with this meaning of kufr, rather what we mean is that they are kuffar with respect to the prophethood of Muhammad and his deen, and this is a reality just as they believe that we are ‘kuffar’ with respect to what they believe and that is also a reality. Continue reading ‘Non-Muslims’ instead of ‘Kuffar’
By Abdullah Hasan, on November 1st, 2009%
In the media age we live in, where branding or compartmentalising people in ‘isms’ and stereotypes has become the norm, not following the status quo can leave an individual feeling despondent and dejected because of the onslaught they might face for not conforming.
This is very true in the field of realising and implementing the comprehensive and middle-way of the Islamic Da’wa – especially when many people pigeonhole themselves into different divisions and categories.
The ailment of elitism and seductiveness has permeated the mindset of some Muslims and [sadly] even many Islamic activists (Duaat). It is very regrettable that there are some who have an elitist and exclusive mentally in our community. They want people to follow what they feel or perceive to be correct, without properly ascertaining whether the views and opinions they are advocating are actually sound. I am sure the readers know what I am talking about. Continue reading To be a Muslim
By Blog Editor, on November 1st, 2009%
Breaking News: The Sunday Times has discovered that Azad Ali is back at work and naturally decided to re-run an old story.
This time the new revelation is that Azad Ali sat or sits on an obscure ‘community involvement’ panel which advises the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Someone with ‘radical views’ should not be sitting on such panels according to it and the people they quote. The views are indeed all extracted from his blogs on BtL, however this time they were very careful and did not misquote him (as far I can tell anyway). Continue reading BtL and Azad Ali in the news (again)
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