Jazakallahu khair for all your hard work. May Allah (swt) preserve you.

Just this past May at the ICNA Convention, during the parallel Youth Conference, Imam Zaid just began his speech on stage. Once he started I was saying to myself “man Imam Zaid is getting old” because of his speaking style at that moment. He seemed completely exhausted. We’re used to his upbeat and energetic style.

A sister came up to me and said that “I am his wife and he is fasting and still hasn’t eaten anything except a few sips of water” this was well after Maghrib. He spent the whole day, running around, from session to session, speaking at at least 4-5 different times all while fasting. I’m sure he doesn’t wish for this to be said in public, but we need to understand and respect our teachers.

Even at Maghrib time, he had just some water and was back at it on stage. We then went and had someone bring him something to eat, hadhidhahullah.

Additionally, imagine devoting your whole life to something, shedding your own sweat, blood and tears for something, but not having people realize it cuz its not for people anyway, and then having someone who didn’t even lend you a hand for an instant try and tear you up on a public forum just “cuz”? But check the adab mA!

Insha Allah the next time someone thinks to criticize someone, especially someone of Imam Zaid’ or Shaykh Hamza’s calibre, will think more deeply about what they may not know about the person and make at least 72 excuses.

Imam Zaid, we love you! May Allah swt continue to bless you, may He preserve you and love you and always be with you. May He swt grant you and our shuyukh good health and a long, happy life. We’re not able to say this enough to you, not nearly as much as you deserve, but sincerely from the bottom of our hearts: Thank You.

Zaid Shakir recently wrote a reply to some guy who had ridiculed him by calling him a “Muslim rock star” for writing about the death of Michael Jackson when, supposedly, Cynthia McKinney was being held in an Israeli jail. The anonymous com…

J/A/K for all that you do for us, Zaytuna!

It often happens that, when you write about something outside the usual topics for Muslim blogs, someone will have a go at you because you didn’t catch *their* mood that day. A lot of the time they don’t recognise that you don’t have any duty to them, particularly when you are writing on your own space that you rented with your own money. It’s incredibly rude to tell someone to write about what you want them to, as if it was their right.

An even more serious variant is the “MPACUK syndrome” whereby they attack Muslims for talking about religion when people are suffering in Palestine or about the political goals *they* want to achieve. In this case, Zaid Shakir wrote about something that was news and which meant a lot to a lot of Muslims, and some insolent nobody who refused to even give his proper name attacked him and got his facts wrong, and alhamdu lillah he was put in his place.