About to delete this blog.

Bismillah.

i’m not writing this post so that the regular readers can convince me not to and then i can be cute and get attention or something wallah lol.

whenever people would delete their blogs I would be like nooooooo too lol. And at that time i didn’t get it but someone close to me made me think about things and re evaluate them and so I think it would be much better if I deleted this. That’s not to say that I think having a blog is a bag thing and whoever has one is “astaghfirullah a deviant” haha or anything even close to that. It’s just to each his own. I thank Allah swt for allowing me to always have a change of opinion about things and not keeping my mind closed to what I’m just used to. And I thank Him for any good that came out of this blog and any benefit that reached any readers anywhere. I ask Him for forgiveness if there was anything insulting that was ever said here or things I should not have said or plain falsehood ever spread. I ask Him for the ability to recognize and distinguish between truth and falsehood in the future.

The main reason I’m writing this post is because if there was a post or a youtube video or something that you benefited from and would want to keep it, here’s the chance to do so. You can copy paste a post or save a link to your email. I don’t think there was really anything like that on this blog lol but I just know how annoying it is to not be able to find something you LOVED later on. But anyway, I will delete this blog as soon as I have the clarity of mind and time and patience to do so as well as well, just plain figure out how! lol

but I also wanted to tell you that someone has been sending me pingbacks to a lot of my posts.  So uh, i guess you could get some of them from there too:  www.malaysia786.wordpress.com

It was a blessing to be able to interact with all of you through this and I pray that you are all safe, and in the best of health and iman, and that Allah swt continue to grant you all tawfiq and ‘aafia. Please keep me in your prayers.

Assalaamu ‘alaikum warehmatullah

Brother Mustafa, former Gitmo Guard

SubhanAllah. The brother converted in the Guantanamo Bay prison on a night shift after asking a Moroccan-British prisoner to write the shahada down for him in Arabic transliteration and English and pass it through the cell.

See the article here:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/190357

Thanks to brother Najeeb for  emailing me this.

I also just saw it posted on www.mujahideenryder.net and www.hahmed.com/blog

Fa inna ma’al ‘usri yusraa, inna ma’al ‘usri yusra.

What IS taqwa?

Bismillah.

It’s interesting. Whenever you hear someone talking about TAQWA in English, if they try and translate it they are also simultaneously telling you that their translation isn’t that accurate and that it’s very difficult to come up with an equivalent. I mean, that’s the case with many words in many languages, but I’ve heard it with TAQWA in particular, many many times.

A friend of mine quoted a scholar and explained that Taqwa meant that when Allah wants you to be somewhere, that you will always be there, and when Allah swt dislikes of you being somewhere then you will never be there.

Professor Chittick gave a quick but very nice  and thorough explanation of it today.  He said it has 3 parts: Fear, Avoidance of sin and Aspiring to God.  He said He doesn’t like the translations “God-fearing” or “Piety”. He said there is something very self-y about “piety” that isn’t right and fear just doesn’t cut it. In the Vision of Islam he translated TAQWA as “God-wariness”. Being wary of God. It’s when you’re on your toes and you are aware. He said when you’re afraid of something or want to avoid it, you have to tiptoe around the edge of it.

You fend off all negative ascriptions to God by ascribing them to yourself, and fend off all positive ascriptions to yourself by ascribing them to God.

May Allah swt fill us with true and perfect taqwa and forgive us our shortcomings. Ameen!

Truth be told..

Salam,

Ok yes. I watch the Tyra show sometimes. lol so hate me

I found this on youtube and thought it was important to post.

I hear many people talking about how they don’t like to help the homeless because they’re on drugs or are lazy or something, which many times could be saheeh but how can we tell one’s intentions or see into their hearts?

Allahu ‘alam, I’m no scholar but I’m pretty sure we’re not supposed to be that harsh. There are ways around the issue. For instance, offer the person food. Or a job. Usually, by the way a person reacts to you offering them food can help you judge a little better how badly they are in need.  When we went for Hajj, on the last day we had all this stuff we weren’t going to take back like clothes, sheets, some food and stuff. So we asked one of the women beggars if she wanted it and her eyes lit up. She was so happy. So if you see that, you can add to it by giving them money as well.

Alhamdulillah, one thing I liked about Mecca was at a restaurant, if you ordered something, the bread came free–an unlimited amount. So you could easily ask for like madd bread and give it to the beggars.

But anyway, the reason I decided to post this was cuz of the scary statistics of 70 percent of ppl in the U.S. living from paycheck to paycheck…and then the reality of how many people are losing their jobs right now! So if you were stingy with the homeless, stop it insha Allah, especially NOW when a lot of those people will probably be very respectable people who lost their jobs. I’ve already heard a couple of stories about MUSLIMS. SubhanAllah. May Allah save us, may He rectify our affairs for us and allow us to help others when we are able. Ameen

*In this episode, Tyra actually goes undercover as a homeless person and tries to experience it for herself. I’m only posting the 1st clip. If you’re interested in watchin the rest you can find it on youtube

Please keep the whole world in your du’aas!

..It ain’t over til it’s OVER…

RevivingTheSunnah: Day 161
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Volume 8, Book 75, Number 321:
Narrated Anas bin Malik:
Allah’s Apostle said, “Allah is more pleased with the repentance of His slave than anyone of you is pleased with finding his camel which he had lost in the desert. “

[Sahih Al Bukhari]

Some Quotes from The Triumphal Sun…

Alhamdulillah, finished reading The Triumphal Sun.   I wanted to share some of the beautiful gems of this book, although they’re really endless, and you should just read the book

If I had more time I would quote a lot more passages but for now I’ll just do a few short ones. Ialso just started reading “Rumi: Past and Present, East and West” by Franklin Lewis. I must say…I’m loving this book too! I’ll let you know the winner once I’m done, but I highly doubt it will be able to beat The Triumphal Sun. Both books have different purposes though, so it wouldn’t really be fair to compare them anyway.

Some of these quotes might be confusing without context, especially if one is unfamiliar with Rumi’s poetry but if you want clarification, ask and if I can,I will, or else I will ask professor Chittick insha Allah. The parts where Schimmel quotes Rumi are in bold:

“Man will melt, like heaven and stones and mountains, once hs is touched by this spiritual sun; but at the same time he will gain a new life thanks to its kindness: annihilation is followed by eternal life. But this holds true only for those who lovingly surrender to the sun: the fresh tree gains power from its warm light so that its fruits ripen; but the dried up branch will become even drier under its burning heat, and will be eventually destroyed–the Sun of Divine Grandeur leads spiritually barren people not towards life but towards death. The Beloved is indeed the true sun, other people being flighty-and short-lived like lightning…What letter could one read in the lightning’s light?  Night falls  over the human heart when He disappears, just as the moon is eclipsed when the sun hides itself…”   (page 63-4)

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“The world is a carrion, and those who seek it are dogs.” (page 100)

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A story from the 3rd book of the Mathnavi.

A man prayed the whole night until Satan appeared before him and said: “Prithee O garrulous one, where is the response “Here am I” to all this “Allah”?

“Thereupon the man got quiet and distressed, but in a dream Khizr appeared before him, informing him that God Most High had ordered to tell him:

That “Allah” of thine is My “Here am I”, and that supplication and grief and ardour of thine is My Messenger to thee. Thy shifts and attempts to find a means of gaining access to Me were in reality My drawing thee towards Me, and released thy feet. Thy fear and love are the noose to catch My favour; beneath every “O Lord!” of thine is many a “Here am I” from Me.  “   (page 352)

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“He holds that God loves to test the believer by not answering his prayers immediately because he rejoices in listening to his voice–parrots and nightingales are put into a cage because their owner loves to listen to them. Does not a man likewise hesitate to give a piece of bread immediately to a lovely young beggar whom he wants to contemplate for  a while, but sends away an ugly old wretch with some pennies to get rid of her the sooner the better…?”  (page 359)

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“Those, in whom is thirst–water is thirsty for them.”

“This quotation from the mathnavi (I 1741) points to the truth that God and man act together–were  not the Source of Love thirsty for man’s longing, how could man dare to long  for this unfathomable source of Life?”  (page 380)

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Please keep me in your du’aas! Insha Allah you all are doing well!

Assalaamu ‘alaikum warehmatullah <3

Book Suggestion.

Bismillah.

Professor Chittick told me to read this book and so I obliged not knowing what I was getting myself into but subhanAllah, I’m in LOVE with the book. Haha ask anyone who has been around me while I was reading it. I’ll make them listen to the passage or page I just read and faint in the beauty of it.  I went and told professor Chittick how much I love the book although I’m not even done with it yet and he said “Yeah, Schimmel’s love for Rumi shines through every page of the book.”  And I remember once in class (before I knew about this book) he said, “Schimmel knew fluent Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Turkish and German. They don’t make ‘em like Schimmel anymore..” haha

I recommend it to anyone with any interest in Rumi, any interest in Sufism, in poetry, in symbolism or in spirituality in general.  Simply BEAUTIFUL!!!

The Triumphal Sun     by AnneMarie Schimmel

If you do read it or have already read it, please come back and comment and tell me what you think

Song of Repentance.

Bismillah.

www.naderkhan.com    Go to “Listen” and then listen to the nasheeds on there. So beautiful masha Allah. I love “Marhaba”, “Ahlal bayt”,  The chorus for “Take my hand” , the beginning part of “Faslon ko takalluf” and the lyrics for “Sound of Tears”

Here are some of the lyrics:

“O One who hears the sound of tears as they quench the thirst of the earth that I pray on…My Lord, Forgive me! I have failed the covenant that I have taken on. O One who sees my arrogant knees as they kiss the ground in the hopes of redemption. My Lord, Forgive me! I have failed the covenant that I have taken on.” 

Underneath the audio it says

Inspiration:   A song of repentance, based loosely on a section of the Hizb al Kabir of Imam Abul-Hasan al Shadhili, the Qasidah of Repentance from the Diwan of Shaykh Muhammad ibn Al-Habib (where the first two Arabic lines come from), the very first couplet of Maulana Rumi’s Mathnawi, and a few other readings. The “covenant” being referred to in this song, is to be found in Sura al An’am [7:172] of the Qur’an, an event sometimes referred to in Persian Islamic literature as “Ruz-e-alast”, but can be taken to refer to any oath, promise, or responsibility. The prayer at the end of the song is the prayer of Adam and Eve as they took responsibility for their misjudgment, also from Sura al A’raf [7:23].

A blessed Rabee’al awwal to all!!  Spring has come

Allahumma salli wa sallim wa baarik ‘ala sayyidna wa mawlana muhammad wa ‘ala aalih fil awwaleen, fil aakhireen, ila yawmiddeen.

Ya Rabbanaa, salli wa sallim daaiman ‘ala habeebika man ilayka da’aanaa!

Members of our community in need…

Great members at that.  May Allah swt make their trials easy upon them and reward them infinitely.

To help ease the medical burdens of our most beloved Imam Siraj Wahhaj, click here to donate: http://www.mana-net.org/subpage.php?ID=donate

To help sister Aminah Assilmi find proper shelter, click here to donate:  http://iumw.org/AminahsCorner.html

Please keep them and the rest of our ummah in your du’aas.

Brother Wisam’s Video Blog!

Bismillah.

Alhamdulillah Brother Wisam and his wife are in Egypt studying Arabic and he’s started a very beneficial video blog. I recommend it to everyone but especially those looking to improve their Arabic and tajweed.

Shout out to Homa for sharing this with me =)

Check it out! :    http://knowledgetravels.wordpress.com/

“Knowledge Travels… So where are you?…”