Muslims under non-muslim rule by Yahya Michot,; oxford

Book Review – The father of Islamic radicalism?
Muslims Under Non-Muslim Rule, by Yahya Michot, Oxford: Interface Publications, pp. 190, 2006, HB.
Born in 1263 in Harran (located close to Damascus) into a family of Islamic scholars and Hanbali jurists, Ibn Taymiyyah received his early education in Arabic and traditional Islamic sciences at home under the tutelage [...]

Maulana Rumi r

When you come to my tomb
The dome on my roof top will appear to you Dancing
Do not come without a tambourine my friend
For a grieving person does not belong in God’s banquet
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If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is. Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till [...]

Defender of the Flag: In Memory of Alia Ansari

This past Tuesday, Muslims celebrated ‘Id al-Fitr, one of Islam’s two great festivals. For me, it was a beautiful day that began with a truly warm and vibrant ‘Id gathering at the Zaytuna Institute. God afforded me a wonderful opportunity to see friends who had been “missing in action,” to meet enthusiastic new converts to [...]

Dr. Joel Ibrahim Kreps, new book ‘Snakes and Ladders,Aphorisms for Modern Living’

December 11 Achievement

Anything of a serious nature that we would like to accomplish in life will
involve overcoming four obstacles

1) fear-there will be multiple sorts of fears-fear of failure,fear of negative
consequences,fear of harm to self or others,fear of poverty and fear of pain
amongst others

2)fatigue-a considerable effort will be necessary which will involve fatigue.
Imagine the Olympic athlete who trains in the early morning and late
afternoon,imagine the soft-ware programmer who has to go through the
night to meet a deadline,imagine the businessman who needs to work seven
days a week in the early days of operations

3)opposition-Any valuable project will meet with opposition. The family of the
artist will warn him that he won’t be able to earn his living,the spouse and
children of the new businessperson will tell him to get a regular job as they
need a steady income,and the friends of the aspiring medical student will tell
him/her that it’s too hard to get in

4)doubt-there are usually many reasons to doubt the success of the project
and to doubt one’s own capacity to realize it.

December 18 Religion and Spirituality

Religion is about developing our love for God.
Spirituality is about realizing God’s love for his creation.

Imam Siraj Wahhaj

Over twenty five years ago, a dynamic generation of African-American Azhar graduates came back home all ready to inspire the Muslims in North America with the richness of knowledge that they had gained. They were the first Americans to go overseas in pursuit of sacred knowledge, and the last echelon to have had the unique privilege to study with the late, eminent scholar of our era, Dr. Suleiman Dunya (1407/1987). When they returned home, and as direly as the community needed them, the masses did not have the lexicon to understand their noble message—nearly two decades before any American pontiff started talking about a “sacred tradition.” However, none could have had any success without fifteen years of Imam Siraj Wahhaj going around the MYNA camps, igniting the imagination of young people, creating a yearning in their hearts for something more, preparing the soil for the seeds of blessed scholarship that would change their lives.

Long before “traditional” sacred sciences captured the imagination of a generation, imam Siraj was inspiring people to know themselves through the profound simplicity of Islam.

Few—(if any)—servants of sacred knowledge have the right to be called ‘imam’ in our day. Siraj Wahhaj is an imam in charity; an imam of bridge building between people; an imam in the way that he is a visionary; in the way that

http://www.sakeenah.org/celebrate2.shtml

Marmaduke Pickthall

 The translation duly appeared, in 1930, and was hailed by the Times Literary Supplement as ‘a great literary achievement.’ Avoiding both the Jacobean archaisms of Sale, and the baroque flourishes and expansions of Yusuf Ali (whose translation Pickthall regarded as too free), it was recognised as the best translation ever of the Book, and, indeed, [...]

From Sufis of Andalusia, by Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi

55: Nunah Fatimah Bint Ibn Al-Muthanna

She lived at Seville. When I met her she was in her nineties and only ate the scraps left by people at their doors. Although she was so old and ate so little, I was almost ashamed to look at her face when I sat with her, it was so rosy and soft. Her own special chapter of the Qur’an was ‘The Opening’. She once said to me, “I was given The Opening and I can wield its power in any matter I wish.”

I, together with two of my companions, built a hut of reeds for her to live in. She used to say, “Of those who come to see me, I admire none more than Ibn al-’Arabi.” On being asked the reason for this she replied, “The rest of you come to me with part of yourselves, leaving the other part of you occupied with your other concerns, while Ibn al-’Arabi is a consolation to me, for he comes to me with all of himself. When he rises up it is with all of himself and when he sits it is with his whole self, leaving nothing of himself elsewhere. That is how it should be on the Way.”

Although God offered to her His Kingdom, she refused, saying, “You are all, all else is inauspicious for me.” Her devotion to God was profound. Looking at her in a purely superficial way one might have thought she was a simpleton, to which she would have replied that he who knows not his Lord is the real simpleton. She was indeed a mercy to the world