MR's Blog » Islam

My father’s favorite ayat or the ones most often repeated to me

MR — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 06:30:18 +0000

My father loved to repeat the following ayat to me almost every week or month. I’d thought I’d share them. Basically these ayat were his answer to almost anything happening to Islam, Muslims or the world in the news or in the masjid or in the family. Looking at the ayat now I can see how it gives the simple answer to almost any problem.

“And hold firmly to the rope of Allah (His covenant and the Qur’an) all together and do not become divided.”
Quran 3:103

“And indeed this, your nation, is one nation (in having a unified collective way of life and course of conduct), and I am your Lord, so fear Me.”
Quran 23:52

“The Believers are but a single Brotherhood. So make peace and reconciliation between contending brothers; and fear Allah that ye may receive Mercy.”
Quran 49:10

“O you who believe! Avoid suspicion as much (as possible), for suspicion in some cases is a sin, and spy not on each other, nor speak ill of each other behind their backs. Would any of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? Nay, you would abhor it… But fear Allah, for Allah is Oft-Returning, Most Merciful.”
Quran 49:12

“O you who believe! Let not some men among you laugh at others for it may be that the (latter) are better then the (former); nor let some women laugh at others for it may be that the (latter) are better than the (former). And don’t defame or be sarcastic to each other. And don’t call each other by (offensive) nicknames; ill-seeming is a name connoting wickedness (to be used of one) after he has believed. And those who do not desist are (indeed) doing wrong.
Quran 49:11

PS – There are 2 others quotes that were also popular: “Music* is haraam. Pictures** are haraam.”

* Including all nasheeds even voice only ones, LOL.
** He never liked taking pictures.

Listen to Malcolm X

MR — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 04:25:43 +0000

Download audio file (malcolm-x-message-to-the-grass-roots-05.mp3)

Replace “Negro” with “Muslim” and it’s applicable to today. The last part is the extremely important.

“This modern house Negro loves his master. He wants to live near him. He’ll pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near his master, and then brag about ‘I’m the only Negro out here.’ ‘I’m the only one on my job.’ ‘I’m the only one in this school.’ You’re nothing but a house Negro. And if someone comes to you right now and says, ‘Let’s separate,’ you say the same thing that the house Negro said on the plantation. ‘What you mean, separate? From America? This good white man? Where you going to get a better job than you get here?’ I mean, this is what you say. ‘I ain’t left nothing in Africa,’ that’s what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa. On that same plantation, there was the field Negro. The field Negro — those were the masses. There were always more Negroes in the field than there was Negroes in the house. The Negro in the field caught hell. He ate leftovers. In the house they ate high up on the hog. The Negro in the field didn’t get nothing but what was left of the insides of the hog. They call ‘em ‘chitt’lin” nowadays. In those days they called them what they were: guts. That’s what you were — a gut-eater. And some of you all still gut-eaters. The field Negro was beaten from morning to night. He lived in a shack, in a hut; He wore old, castoff clothes. He hated his master. I say he hated his master. He was intelligent. That house Negro loved his master. But that field Negro — remember, they were in the majority, and they hated the master. When the house caught on fire, he didn’t try and put it out; that field Negro prayed for a wind, for a breeze. When the master got sick, the field Negro prayed that he’d die. If someone come to the field Negro and said, ‘Let’s separate, let’s run,’ he didn’t say ‘Where we going?’ He’d say, ‘Any place is better than here.’ You’ve got field Negroes in America today. I’m a field Negro. The masses are the field Negroes. When they see this man’s house on fire, you don’t hear these little Negroes talking about ‘our government is in trouble.’ They say, ‘The government is in trouble.’ Imagine a Negro: ‘Our government’! I even heard one say ‘our astronauts.’ They won’t even let him near the plant — and ‘our astronauts’! ‘Our Navy’ — that’s a Negro that’s out of his mind. That’s a Negro that’s out of his mind. Just as the slavemaster of that day used Tom, the house Negro, to keep the field Negroes in check, the same old slavemaster today has Negroes who are nothing but modern Uncle Toms, 20th century Uncle Toms, to keep you and me in check, keep us under control, keep us passive and peaceful and nonviolent. That’s Tom making you nonviolent. It’s like when you go to the dentist, and the man’s going to take your tooth. You’re going to fight him when he starts pulling. So he squirts some stuff in your jaw called novocaine, to make you think they’re not doing anything to you. So you sit there and ’cause you’ve got all of that novocaine in your jaw, you suffer peacefully. Blood running all down your jaw, and you don’t know what’s happening. ‘Cause someone has taught you to suffer — peacefully. The white man do the same thing to you in the street, when he want to put knots on your head and take advantage of you and don’t have to be afraid of your fighting back. To keep you from fighting back, he gets these old religious Uncle Toms to teach you and me, just like novocaine, suffer peacefully. Don’t stop suffering — just suffer peacefully. As Reverend Cleage pointed out, ‘Let your blood flow In the streets.’ This is a shame. And you know he’s a Christian preacher. If it’s a shame to him, you know what it is to me. There’s nothing in our book, the Quran — you call it ‘Ko-ran’ — that teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery. That’s a good religion.”

Welcome 1431 Hijra

MR — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:38:23 +0000

Happy Islamic New Year! May Allah (swt) forgive your sins from the past year and increase your good deeds for the upcoming year! Related posts:Mufti Abdur Rahman’s Mother Has Passed Away Sami Yusuf – Munajat [Video] Ramadan Mubarak

Jon Stewart on the Swiss Minaret Ban

MR — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:16:49 +0000

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c

Oliver’s Travels – Switzerland

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

Jon Stewart should become a CNN news anchor.

Young Jeezy’s shirk free understanding of Islam

MR — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:33:06 +0000

By my nephews and nieces, I will email Jesus
Tell him forward to Moses and CC Allah

Download audio file (young-jeezy-cc-allah.mp3)

So my tafsir on this is that Young Jeezy believes the Christians go to Jesus (peace be upon him) for help, the Jews go to Moses (peace be upon him), and Muslims go to Allah. There is your shirk free rhyme. May Allah guide him.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf’s Mother and Sister Interview on MBC

MR — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:32:46 +0000

Part 1:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Part 2:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Road to Hajj from Japan

MR — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:12:53 +0000

InshaAllah one day I will visit Japan.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Fasting on Thanksgiving Day 2009 (9th Dhul Hijjah – Yawm al-Arafat) will remove 2 years of sins

MR — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:52:56 +0000

It was reported from Abu Qutadah (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) was asked about fasting on the Day of Arafah. He said, ‘It expiates for the sins of the previous year and of the coming year.’ Narrated by Muslim.

Tomorrow is the 9th of Dhul Hijjah which is known as the Day of Arafat. It’s also Thanksgiving Day in America. Time for some Turkey iftar!

Best Buy “Happy Eid al-Adha” makes Conservative Christians go crazy

MR — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:40:26 +0000

As you can see here (via TechCrunch) a few people are mad that BestBuy’s thanksgiving advertisement features a 14-letter phrase (or 15 if you count the hyphen).

Who’s going to BestBuy this weekend?

UPDATE: “Merry Christmas” BestBUY TV AD

I’m a Orthodox Traditional Fundamentalist Sunni according to “Top 500 Most Influential Muslims”

MR — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:13:35 +0000

The Royal Islamic Strategies Studies Centre in Jordan and the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding in America recently released a publication entitled “The 500 Most Influential Muslims”. I started reading it then stopped after I realized it wasn’t a short read and began browsing. From what I read it’s clear there is a clear bias of anti-Salafism. They said that “Traditional Islam” makes up about 96% of the world Muslims. “Islamic Modernism” makes up about 1% and “Islamic Fundamentalism” makes up about 3%. I thought to myself, that’s a pretty good analysis and understand of Muslim demographics worldwide. Within any masjid community that’s pretty much what I say (give or take a few percentages).

I thought it was all good until they went on to define each of the 3 divisions. The Traditional Islam section talked about the different Islamic schools of law and included the Shia ones as well. It also mentioned sufism and the different paths. Then it went to Islamic Fundamentalism and it listed the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafism/Wahhabism and Revolutionary Shi’ism as part of Islamic Fundamentalism. This was shocking since the scholars the listed in the top 50 were most Salafi or supported of the Islamic brotherhood. They said that Islamic Fundamentalism makes up about 3% of the Muslim world’s population. Does that mean all the salafis/wahhhabis, all the members of the ikhwaan al muslimeen, and all the revolutionary shias only make up 3% of the Muslim world’s population?

I am not necessarily in agreement with Salafism or the Muslim Brotherhood, but we have to be fair and be honest. They aren’t really fundamentalists. In fact the Muslim Brotherhood was started by traditional Sufi Muslims. I was a little disappointed when I read that John Esposito is one of the Chief Editors. I would expect him to know better, unless there was influence from the financiers and organizing governments involved in this. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was.

They also mentioned “The Aga Khan” as one of the Top 50. I wonder if they knew the other 49 wouldn’t consider him to be Muslim.

In conclusion according to the report, since I’m Hanafi, I’m a part of the Orthodox Traditional group. Since I want follow the Qur’an and Sunnah and follow Prophet Muhammad (saas), which is what Salafism is, I’m also a Fundamentalist.

You can read the full publication here (PDF).