Rajab: Sow The Seeds and The Blessings of Ramadan*~Imam Zaid Shakir~*

Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali mentions in Lata’if al-Ma’arif:

The month of Rajab is the key to the months of goodness and blessings that follow it. Abu Bakr b. al-Warraq al-Balkhi said: “Rajab is the month to sow the seeds; Sha’ban is the month to irrigate the crop; and Ramadan is the month to reap the harvest.” It has similarly been related from him: “Rajab is like the wind; Sha’ban is like the water-laden clouds; and Ramadan is like the rain.” Someone else mentioned: “The year in its entirety is like a tree: during Rajab its buds sprout; during Sha’ban it sends forth its branches; during Ramadan its fruit ripens; and the believers are the farmhands who harvest that fruit.”

Start Practicing or Stop Pretending*~~Shaykh Hamza Yusuf~~*

A forthright, powerful and sobering khutbah (sermon) by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf regarding how the Muslim community should respond to the provocations that we are faced with, whether they be blasphemous cartoons about the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) or deliberate misinterpretations of Islam and its teachings.  Although the khutbah  was  delivered in the wake of  the Embassy attacks in Libya in 2012, it nevertheless has relevance for the Ummah on a daily basis in these politically sensitive and delicate times.

Am I Fundamentalist?

*------------------------*

Am I fundamentalist if I believe in creation and order?

That Allah (swt) is my Lord and Muhammed (pbuh) is the final messenger?

Am I a fundamentalist if I reject secularism and faith’s demonisation?

That religion is my wealth and in Islam is my salvation?

*------------------------*

Am I a fundamentalist if I pursue sacred rather than profane?

Am I fundamentalist if I study Fard-al-Ayn?

Am I a fundamentalist if I perform Salah in the park?

Am I a fundamentalist if my heart gravitates towards light rather than dark?

*------------------------*

Old man at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul

Sidi Bilal and I with friend outside Blue Mosque, Istanbul

 Alhamdllillah, Sidi Bilal and I had just finished Salāt al-Jumu'ah at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, when across the courtyard we caught sight of this old man looking serene in white. We just had to greet him and give him Salaam!

Rebirth - A Poem Dedicated to "New" Muslims

*~~Rebirth~~*

As-Salaamu-Alaikum, welcome to the fold,

Come into the warmth, from outside in the cold.

*------------*

Blessed are you to venture down this sacred path,

Where faith is your future, heedlessness your past.

*------------*

Fear not the challenges that lay ahead for you,

Brothers and Sisters are on hand,

To assist and support you when things don't go as planned.

 *------------*

Surrounded by temptation and the habits you want to leave,

Rejoice in the path you've chosen and for the past do not grieve.

 *------------*

Success comes to those who see life as a spiritual journey and not a materialistic game,

Would the sweet taste of Imaan feel quite the same, if with ease it finally came?

*------------*

Allah (swt) is Merciful, Allah(swt) is full of Rahmah,

Follow the final Messenger (pbuh) and arrive at the gates of Jannah.

*------------*

Can the West Live with Islam - Debate - Tim Winter Cambridge University vs Nigel Biggar Oxford University

Tim (Timothy John) Winter (born 1960), aka Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad, is a British Muslim thinker, professor, and translator. Winter has written about the interaction between Islam and secular issues spanning a wide range of disciplines. He has held a number of lectureships and administrative posts in British academia having to do with theology, the intellectual history of Islamic civilization, and international academic cooperation. He is the older brother of football writer Henry Winter.

Abdal Hakim Murad graduated from Cambridge University with a double-first in Arabic in 1983. He then lived in Cairo for three years, studying Islam under traditional teachers at Al-Azhar, one of the oldest universities in the world. He went on to reside for three years in Jeddah, where he administered a commercial translation office and maintained close contact with Habib Ahmad Mashhur al-Haddad and other ulama from Hadramaut, Yemen.

In 1989, Shaikh Abdal Hakim returned to England and spent two years at the University of London learning Turkish and Farsi. Since 1992 he has been a doctoral student at Oxford University, specializing in the religious life of the early Ottoman Empire. He is currently Secretary of the Muslim Academic Trust (London) and Director of the Sunna Project at the Centre of Middle Eastern Studies at Cambridge University, which issues the first-ever scholarly Arabic editions of the major Hadith collections.

Shaikh Abdal Hakim is the translator of a number of works, including two volumes from Imam al-Ghazali's Ihya Ulum al-Din. He gives durus and halaqas from time to time and taught the works of Imam al-Ghazali at the Winter 1995 Deen Intensive Program in New Haven, CT. He appears frequently on BBC Radio and writes occasionally for a number of publications, including The Independent; Q-News International, Britain's premier Muslim Magazine; and Seasons, the semiacademic journal of Zaytuna Institute.

As of 2007, Winter was a doctoral student at Oxford University. He simultaneously held several professional appointments and administrative offices at universities and in Islamic organizations, including: Shaykh Zayed Lecturer of Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University; Director of Studies in Theology at Wolfson College, Cambridge; secretary of the Muslim Academic Trust (London); Director of the Anglo-Muslim Fellowship for Eastern Europe; President of the UK Friends of Bosnia-Herzegovina; and Director of the Sunna Project (see external link), which has published some of the foremost scholarly Arabic editions of the major Sunni Hadith collections. In 2008 he served on the Steering Committee of the Cambridge Interfaith Program. He has been a participant in the Scriptural Reasoning project.   

The Süleymaniye Mosque, built on the order of Sultan Süleyman (Süleyman the Magnificent).