‘Ali at-Tamimi: “The Zeal to Guide Vs. the Zeal to Judge” July 29, 2008
Posted by Ghuraba in : Ghuraba, Muslims, Naseeha, knowledge , add a commentSalaam Alaaykum WarahmatullahThis was taken From a lecture by ‘Ali at-Tamimi, titled ‘Intellection Confusion of the Muslim Youth’:
“The fourth cause which leads to intellectual confusion amongst the youth is the lack of zeal to order, to guide the people. In other words, instead of being zealous for the guidance of people, often, the youth were zealous for judging the people, zealous for passing out judgements: ‘Well, he’s astray, and he’s on the guidance, and he’s, well, he’s OK, but he’s not quite there, and this one is 10%, and this one, OK, he’s 13.2%,’ and so forth, and so on.
This is not the way of Allah’s Prophet. This is not the way of the Prophet’s Companions. Rather, they used to seek to guide the people, and Allah Said to the Prophet, in order to console him: {“…So, do not ruin yourself out of sadness for them…”} [Fatir; 8] See, the Prophet would be so sad when the people wouldn’t accept the message, it used to affect him physically. So, Allah Tells him: “Do not allow yourself to be in such a state, that you are almost losing yourself out of sadness because they are not guided.”
This is how the Prophet was.
Unfortunately, some of the youth take pleasure, they take glee; it’s almost as if it gives them some sort of energy, some sort of, you know, happiness that they can judge somebody, and say: ‘OK, you’re a person of bid’ah,’ ‘OK, he’s astray.’ But, if they knew what they were saying, and if they realized the seriousness of the word, first of all, they wouldn’t be so quick to judge. And second of all, even if they were correct in their judgement, they should be taken with sadness, because if that man is astray - if that person is truly a person of heresy - then, he is facing a very deadly doom in the Hereafter, and one should be saddened in wanting to guide him, not happy to see him in that state.”
The Relief from Distress- Shaykhul Islam Ibn Taymiyya July 8, 2008
Posted by Ghuraba in : Ghuraba, Muslims, Naseeha, Qur'an, True Shuyook, hadith, knowledge , add a commentSalaam Alaaykum Warahmatullah
An explanation to the Du’a of Yunus. The Dua of Dhun-Nun (Yunus) by which he invoked Allah from within the belly of the whale was “There is none worthy of worship except You. You are pure. Verily I am amongst the oppressors.” TMQ Al-Anbiya 21:87 The Prophet (SAW) said about the Invocation of Yunus ‘None who is experiencing difficulty employs it except that Allah would relieve him of his difficulty’ Shaikh ul Islam Ibn Taymiyyah was asked about the dua of yunus and He answers it in the form of this Book. Among the Questions answered include. What is the Meaning of this Dua? Are their any unstated connection between belief in the heart and the meaning of this Supplication? What are the connection between belief in the heart and the meaning of this Supplication such that it leads to the removal of difficulty? What are the Conditions, the Method and many more Questions answered
http://kalamullah.com/Books/The%20Relief%20From%20Distress.pdf
Book Review 2: Madarij al Salikeen by Ibn al Qayim July 1, 2008
Posted by Ghuraba in : Muslims, Naseeha, Qur'an, True Shuyook, knowledge , add a commentSalaam Alaaykum Warahmatullah,
By Anwar Al-Awlaki
Madarij al Salikeen by Ibn al Qayim:
This is a three Volume book which represents one of the greatest works produced on the topic of spirituality. I had already read the book along time ago and was fascinated by it. When I was in jail and was thinking about what books to order when I would be allowed to do so, this book seemed to be the right thing to read in my present circumstances. Steadfastness was what was needed now, and steadfastness was a deed of the heart, so it was the heart that I should focus on.
When the opportunity arrived and I was allowed to order books it was on the top of my reading list.
The author starts by giving tafsir of surat al Fatiha. The rest of the book are the stages that the traveller moves through in “???? ???? ????? ??????” “You do we worship and You do we seek help from” [Fatiha, v5]
The book is based on a book written by Abu Ismail al-Ansari al-Harawi al-Sufi who was a Hanbali scholar from Hirat in modern day Afghanistan. The name of his book is Manazil al-Sa’ireen (the Stations of the Travellers). Imam Abu Ismail named one hundred stations that the traveller during his journey to Allah passes through.
The first station is “al-Yaqadhah” “The Waking up” This is when the heart wakes up from the slumber of unawareness. The next station is the station of “Azm” “The Resolve,” after the heart has woken up it decides to embark on its journey towards Allah.
Some of the stations that he mentions: The station of Fear, Repentance, Observation, Hope, Sincerity, Purification, Trust, Submission, Fortitude, Gratitude, Will, Certainty, Trust, Knowledge, Wisdom, Tranquillity, Purity, Drowning, Absence, Life, and Love.
The language of ibn al Qayim in his books is eloquent. But in this book his language is so high class that it represents the peak of his writing. This book is simply untranslatable. The terminology that he uses and the fascinating way of putting the concepts together would make any translation lose a portion of its beauty during the process. Now I don’t mean here by eloquence the beauty of the words and the use of a flowery style of writing but I mean the ability of the author to express complicated thoughts and sophisticated concepts, and what would otherwise be difficult to express, into readable words that not only are understood by the reader but captivate him and make him feel that the author is reading his inner thoughts and is seeing through into the depths of his heart to see his ailment and prescribe the cure.
Ibn al Qayim after mentioning the verses of Quran and hadiths blends his words with the words of Abu Ismail al-Ansari , whom he would refer to as shaykh-ul-Islam, along with the sayings of the great scholars of the heart such as: al Junaid, AbdulQadir al Jaylaani, al Tasturi, and al Fudhail bin Iyadh.
There are so many words of wisdom and valuable teachings in this book that are waiting to be observed and lived by.
May Allah bless us all and provide us with wisdom and guide us to righteous acts. We ask Allah to shower his mercy upon our great scholars whom Allah has made the instruments of teaching us the truth and guiding us towards the straight path. Ameen
http://kalamullah.com/Books/Madarij-us-Salikeen.pdf
Ayaats of the Quraan June 19, 2008
Posted by Ghuraba in : Ghuraba, Mujahideen, Muslims, Naseeha, Qur'an, knowledge , add a commentSalaam Alaaykum Warahmatullah,
Allah Azzawajaal says in several places in the quraan that these verses or ayaats are for the believers to recall and take as naseeha. One of our favorite ayaats to listen to and wonder about is Suraah Al’ Imraan verse numbers 168-70.
Allah Azzawajaal says
“The hypocrites are the ones who said about their killed brethern while they
themselves sat (at home):
“if only the had listened to us they would not have been killed”
Say: “Avert death from your ownselves, if you speak the truth”
Think not of those who are killed in the Way of Allah as dead.
Nay, they are alive, with their lord, and they have provision.
They rejoice in what Allah has bestowed upon them as his bounty,
Rejoicing for the sake of those who have not yet joined them, but
are left behind (not yet martyred) that on them no fear shall come,
on them no fear shall come, nor shall they grieve.
they rejoice in a grace and bounty from Allah,
and that Allah will not waste the reward of the believers.
Those who answered (the call of) Allah and the messenger (Muhammad)
after being wounded; For those of them who did good deeds and feared
Allah, there is a great reward.
Those (the believers) unto whom the people (hypocrites) said,
“Verify, the people (pagans) have gathered against you (a great army),
therefore, fear them.”
But it (only) increased them in Faith, and they said: “Allah (alone) is
sufficient for us, and he is the best disposer of affairs (for us)”. ”
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vfl_DepkWlM (Luhaidhan)
Subhanallah such beautiful verses..
Read it, Ponder over it, and Act upon it.. Inshaallah
Book Review Behind Bars June 10, 2008
Posted by Ghuraba in : Muslims, Naseeha, True Shuyook , add a comment
Assalamu alaykum all,
In this set of short blogs I will review the books that I had a chance to read while I was in jail. Here is the first:
This was during my first two months in the Political Security Jail. This was a time when I was allowed no visitors, no contact with family, and no contact with other prisoners. In fact I wasn’t even allowed to speak to the prison guards except in whispers and only for urgent needs. This was a time of complete isolation from the outside world.
I was in an underground solitary cell made up of four concrete walls with an iron gate on one side and on the opposite side a small window -rather a hole- covered with iron mesh to allow for some fresh air to come in. I couldn’t see much from it because it was about four meters high. Then there was the roof with a bulb hanging from it which was on continuously day and night. Then the floor with a mattress 2-3 inches thick, a blanket, a worn off pillow, a plastic plate, a bottle for water, and an empty bottle “just in case”.
And then there was a Quran
In this environment there is nothing to do and nothing to read but the Quran, and that is when the Quran reveals it secrets. When the hearts are clean; when there is nothing clouding the spirit, the Quran literally overwhelms the heart.
I have never in my life felt the Quran so strongly. Thoughts, insights and feelings that I would fail to describe would come with every new verse that I would recite. Reading Quran then was not something I would force upon myself but I would recite it with eagerness for hours at end and never lose my concentration. The chapters of the Quran would carry me outside of this world and I would completely forget about my situation until a warden would slam the door open for restroom time or to take me for interrogation. Then I would wake up again to the depressing reality of this world.
So does the Quran speak to us differently in jail?
We approach Quran with a more receptive heart when we are being tested. We also come to understand Quran better when we are separated from the distractions of this world. Both these two elements exist in prison. One thing I came to realize is that the Quran does not open up its secrets to you unless you open up your heart to it. Quran does not spill its pearls to the undeserving.
Ibn Taymiyyah wrote while he was in jail that he had been reciting Quran and reflecting on its meanings and that Allah has opened up the meanings of Quran for him. He said he learned new meanings that scholars would wish to learn. He had learned from it meanings he had never thought of before and he went further to state that he regretted the time he spent in the past learning other aspects of knowledge and not focusing on the Book of Allah. Within a short period he said that he had read the Quran, from cover to cover, eighty times. This was due to the blessings of him being imprisoned. Allah says: “You might dislike a thing and in it Allah puts a lot of good”
During that blessed period of over two months when I was free of any distractions except for the interrogation worries, that is when I came to understand the statement of Uthman (r) when he said: “If the hearts are pure they would never satisfy their thirst from the Book of Allah”
Those moments are so strange to me now, and so different that they do not seem to be a reality, or even a far away memory, but rather seem to be a dream.
We ask you O Allah to make us of those who love your words and contemplate them.
“Indeed in that (i.e. Quran) is a reminder for whoever has a heart or who listens while he is present (in mind)” Sura Qaaf 37.
Courtesy of Anwar al Awlaki .Com
Tawheed al-Asmaa was-Sifaat May 27, 2008
Posted by Ghuraba in : Muslims, Naseeha, Qur'an, hadith, knowledge , 1 comment so farSalaam Alaaykum Warahmatullah,
Inshaallah today our post will be about Taheed Al-Asmaa was-Sifaat which is maintaining the unity of the names and attribute of Allah Azzawajaal.
This category of Tawheed has five main aspects:
1. For the unity of Allaah’s names and attributes to be maintained in the first aspect, Allaah must be referred to according to how He and His Prophet (saws) have described Him without explaining away His names and attributes by giving them meanings other than their obvious meanings. For example, Allaah in the Qur’aan says He gets angry with the disbelievers and the hypocrites. He says:
“That He may punish the hypocrites, men and women, and the pagans men and women, who have an evil opinion of Allaah. A circle of evil is around them; Allaah is
angrywith them, curses them and has prepared for them an evil end.”
Thus, anger is one of God’s attributes. It is incorrect to say that His anger must mean His punishment since anger is a sign of weakness in man and, as such, not befitting of Allaah. What Allaah has stated should be accepted with the qualification that His anger is not like human anger, based on Allaah’s statement, “There is nothing like him”. The process of so-called “rational” interpretation when taken to its logical conclusion results in the denial of God’s very existence. For, Allaah describes Himself as living and man lives, therefore, according to the rationalist argument, God is neither living nor existing. The fact is that the similarity between God’s attributes and those of mankind is only in name and not in degree. When attributes are used in reference to God, they are to be taken in the absolute sense, free from human deficiencies.
2. The second aspect of Tawheed al-Asmaa was-Sifaat involves referring to Allaah as He has referred to Himself without giving Him any new names or attributes. For example, Allaah may not be given the name al-Ghaadib (the Angry one), in spite of the fact that He has said that He gets angry, because neither Allaah nor His messenger has used this name. This may seem to be a very fine point, but it must be maintained in order to prevent the false description of God. That is, finite man is in no position to define the infinite Lord of creation.
3. In the third aspect of Tawheed al-Asmaa was-Sifaat Allaah is referred to without giving Him the attributes of His creation. For example, it is claimed in the Bible and Torah that Allaah spent the first six days creating the universe then slept on the seventh. For this reason, Jews and Christians take either Saturday or Sunday as a day of rest in which work is looked at as a sin. Such a claim assigns to God the attributes of His creation. It is man who tires after heavy work and needs sleep to recuperate. Elsewhere in the Bible and Torah, God is portrayed as repenting for His bad thoughts in the same way that humans do when they realize their errors.Similarly the claim that God is a spirit or has a spirit completely ruins this area of Tawheed. Allaah does not refer to Himself as a spirit anywhere in the Qur’aan nor does His Prophet (saws) express anything of that nature in Hadeeth. In fact, Allaah refers to the spirit as part of His creation.
The key principle which should be followed when dealing with Allaah’s attributes is the Qur’ânic formula,
“There is nothing like Him and He is hearer and seer of all.”
The attributes of hearing and seeing are among human attributes, but when they are attributed to The Divine Being they are without comparison in their perfection. However, when these attributes are associated with men they necessitate ear and eye apparatuses which can not be attributed to God. What man knows about the Creator is only what little He has revealed to him through His prophets. Therefore, man is obliged to stay within these narrow limits. When man gives free rein to his intellect in describing God, he is liable to fall into errors by assigning to Allaah the attributes of His creation.
In their love of pictorial representations, Christians have painted, carved and molded innumerable human likenesses and called them images of God. These have served to pave the way for the acceptance of Jesus’ divinity among the masses. Once they accepted the conception of the Creator as being like a human being, accepting Jesus as God presented no real problem.
4. The fourth aspect of Tawheed al-Asmaa was-Sifaat requires that man not be given the attributes of Allaah. For example, in the New Testament Paul takes the figure of Melchizedek, king of Salem, from the Torah (Genesis 14:18-20) and gives both him and Jesus the divine attribute of having no beginning or end,
“1 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him,2 and to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace.3 He is without father or mother or genealogy, and has neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the son of God he continues a priest forever.“
“5 So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, ‘Thou art my son, today I have begotten thee’; 6 as he says also in another place, ‘Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek’.
Most Shi’ite sects (with the exception of the Zaidites of Yemen) have given their “Imaams” divine attributes of absolute infallibility,knowledge of the past, the future and the unseen, the ability to change destiny and control over the atoms of creation. In so doing they set up rivals who share God’s unique attributes and who, in fact, become gods besides Allaah.
5. Maintaining the unity of Allaah’s names also means that Allaah’s names in the definite form cannot be given to His creation unless preceded by the prefix ‘Abd meaning “slave of” or “servant of’. Many of the Divine names in their indefinite form like Ra’oof and Raheem are allowable names for men because Allaah has used some of them in their indefinite forms to refer to the Prophet (saws):
“A messenger has come to you from among yourselves to whom anything which burdens you is grievous. He is full of concern for you and is full of pity (
Ra’oof) and full of mercy (Raheem)”.
But Ar-Ra’oof (the One Most Full of Pity) and Ar-Raheem (the Most Merciful) can only be used to refer to men if they are preceded by ‘Abd as in ‘Abdur-Ra’oof or ‘Abdur-Raheem, since in the definite form they represent a level of perfection which only belongs to God. Similarly, names like ‘Abdur-Rasool (slave of the messenger), ‘Abdun-Nabee (slave of the Prophet), ‘Abdul-Husayn (slave of Husayn), etc., where people name themselves slaves to other than Allaah are also forbidden. Based on this principle, the Prophet (saws) forbade Muslims from referring to those put under their charge as ‘Abdee (my slave) or Amatee (my slave girl).
courtesy http://www.allaahuakbar.net
Date Palm in Jannah May 21, 2008
Posted by Ghuraba in : Naseeha, knowledge , add a commentSalaam Alaaykum Warahmatullah,
“Whoever says: ‘Glorified is Allah, the Most Great, and praised is He’ [Subhan Allah al-'Adhim wa bi-Hamdih] will have a date palm planted for him in Paradise.” ['Sahih al-Jami'' #5531]
They were youths, yet mature youths May 12, 2008
Posted by Ghuraba in : Muslims, Naseeha, knowledge , add a commentSalaam Alaykum Warahmatullahi Wa Barakathu,
A message for the youth and even the elder generation as they are part of this ummah..
“…They were youths, yet mature youths, their eyes fresh and free of evil, their feet refrained from approaching falsehood and futility.
They sacrificed and expended themselves in worship and in withholding themselves from sleep. They sold their souls which were to pass away for souls which would never die.
Allaah saw them in the latter part of the night, bending their backs, reciting the Qur’aan. Whenever one of them came to an Aayah mentioning Paradise, he would weep, longing for it. Whenever he came upon an Aayah mentioning the fire he would groan out of fear, as if the Hell-fire were directly in front of him.
The earth devoured their knees their hands and their foreheads (out of their constant prostration). They joined exhaustion in the night with exhaustion in the day. Their colour becoming yellowed and their bodies emaciated through standing long in prayer and frequent fasting - whilst they regarded their own actions to be negligible before Allaah.
They fulfilled their covenant with Allaah and attained Allaah’s promise.”
So let us hasten to be like them and to resemble them, since, as it was said: We are not in comparison to those who came before except like small herbs growing beside the trunks of tall palm trees.
And as ‘Abdullaah Ibn al-Mubaarak said: Do not mention us whilst mentioning them, the fit and healthy when he walks is not like the crippled.
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