Monthly Archives: December 2006
Standing at Arafat
Sadly, there aren’t a lot of news pictures of the pilgrims at Arafat today.
According to a hadith in At-Tirmithi, the Prophet (saws) recommended this dua for the day of Arafat
Laa ‘ilaaha ‘illallaahu wahdahu laa shareeka lahu, lahul-mulku wa lahul-hamdu wa Huwa ‘alaa kulli shay’in Qadeer.
None has the right to be worshipped but Allah alone, Who has no partner. His is the dominion and His is the praise, and He is Able to do all things.
Today would also be a good day to re read the Prophet’s last sermon, which was delivered today at Arafat in the year 10 A.H., or 632 A.D.
“O People, listen well to my words, for I do not know whether, after this year, I shall ever be amongst you again. Therefore listen to what I am saying to you very carefully and take these words to those who could not be present today.
O People, just as you regard this month, this day, this city as Sacred, so regard the life and property of every Muslim as a sacred trust. Return the goods entrusted to you to their rightful owners. Treat others justly so that no one would be unjust to you. Remember that you will indeed meet your LORD, and that HE will indeed reckon your deeds. God has forbidden you to take usury (riba), therefore all riba obligation shall henceforth be waived. Your capital , however, is yours to keep. You will neither inflict nor suffer inequity. God has judged that there shall be no riba and that all the riba due to `Abbas ibn `Abd al Muttalib shall henceforth be waived.
Every right arising out of homicide in pre-Islamic days is henceforth waived and the first such right that I waive is that arising from the murder of Rabi`ah ibn al Harith
ibn `Abd al Muttalib.O Men, the Unbelievers indulge in tampering with the calendar in order to make permissible that which God forbade, and to forbid that which God has made permissible. With God the months are twelve in number. Four of them are sacred, three of these are successive and one occurs singly between the months of Jumada and Sha`ban. Beware of the devil, for the safety of your religion. He has lost all hope that he will ever be able to lead you astray in big things, so beware of following him in small things.
O People, it is true that you have certain rights over your women, but they also have rights over you. Remember that you have taken them as your wives only under God’s trust and with His permission. If they abide by your right then to them belongs the right to be fed and clothed in kindness. Treat your women well and be kind to them, for they are your partners and committed helpers. It is your right and they do not make friends with anyone of whom you do not approve, as well as never to be unchaste…
O People, listen to me in earnest, worship God (The One Creator of the Universe), perform your five daily prayers (Salah), fast during the month of Ramadan, and give your financial obligation (zakah) of your wealth. Perform Hajj if you can afford to.
All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to yourselves. Remember, one day you will appear before God (The Creator) and you will answer for your deeds. So beware, do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone.
O People, no prophet or messenger will come after me and no new faith will be born. Reason well, therefore, O People, and understand words which I convey to you. I am leaving you with the Book of God (the Quraan) and my Sunnah (the life style and the behavioral mode of the Prophet), if you follow them you will never go astray.
All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listen to me directly. Be my witness O God, that I have conveyed your message to your people.
Eid Takbir
Whether you’re celebrating Eid al Adha on Saturday or Sunday, don’t forget the Eid Takbir. My favorite thing about Eid is getting to the masjid an hour before the prayer and joining in the jamaah reciting the takbir.
Watch Hajj
Islam Channel is showing Mina and Mecca at the moment. Path to Peace has the feed a little bit clearer.
Hajj in the video news
BBC – video with One Pilgrim’s Journey – I love Indonesian dress, especially their prayer outfits.
BBC – Hajj begins
CNN – Hajj, the essential journey – looks like they have a new video up for every day.
Things to learn and Rape
In addition to a reading wish list a mile long, I have a list of things that I’d like to learn, Islam-wise. I signed up for a Sunnipath course last spring, but with work, paralegal courses, and marriage, I couldn’t find the time to finish it. Thankfully, there have been several small, free lectures this past year that I’ve had the chance to take advantage of, Alhamdulilah.
I would like to get more in depth into aqidah, especially the hadith of Gabriel. I would love to develop a course for converts based on this hadith. I mean, this hadith has everything a muslim should know, and yet, I didn’t know about it for several years. Maybe I just haven’t been reading the right stuff. *shrugs*
I would like to explore tasawwuf. So much of the materials aimed towards converts lean heavily on the fiqhi aspects of Islam, halal and haram, don’t do this, don’t do that. All of that is well and good, but something is lacking. When I envision what I want my deeny life to be, I want it to be a deep relationship with the Almighty, my Lord (swt). While following God’s laws are certainly a part of that, it doesn’t fill me. My husband isn’t a big sufi fan, despite having some sufi sheikhs in his family tree. But, I’m slowly working on him ;)
And, although I’m a wee bit exhausted from the “don’t do this, don’t do that” Islam that I’ve been following since I converted, I would like to delve deeper into Islamic Jurisprudence. I’m a quasi-paralegal (do the paralegal work without the title) and in the future, I’m thinking of going to law school. Law and the development of law fascinates me. I never knew how complex the laws of the United States were, especially case law. While studying for my paralegal certification, I spent many a Saturdays in a local law library. The first time I went, I stood in awe at the thousands upon thousands of books full of court decisions, all interpreting and fleshing out US law. While we have the basics – the US consitituion and the US code, it’s the case law that really makes things complex and exciting.
Islamic Jurisprudence is the same. There are our basics, the Qur’an and the Sunnah of our Prophet (saws), and then we thousands upon thousands of books and scholars who interpret this. It would be fascinating to delve deeper into the issues that are presented as so black and white to converts – don’t do this, don’t do that – and study the sources and the commentary over history…
…which brings me to the article that I was originally going to blog about. Can you tell I tend to ramble? Shaykh Faraz Rabbani is uber spiffy. He teaches several courses on Sunnipath, as well as many of the free lectures they do from time to time. He answers a question on witnesses for rape that leaves my mind racing – what is the history of rape laws in islamic jurisprudence? What influences it and how has it changed over time? I’m definately going to have to look up Mufti Taqi Usmani’s work on this. I think it’s floating somewhere out in cyberspace. I’m definately going to play around in english works for the time being, but I really need to dedicate myself to serious arabic studies. Bah.
Q. If a woman is raped, does she have to bring up 4 witnesses to get the rapist convicted? If so, what is if she gets pregnant. Will she get punishment since juridicaly she is guilty of adultery? And can modern technics be used in order to proof that she was being raped. I read somewhere else, that she has to bring up 4 witnesses, but it seems very unlikely, since if there were 4 witnesses theese would obviously done something to help her. Can u please bring some light into this whole complicated topic.
A. Walaikum assalam wa rahmatullah,
I pray this finds you in the best of health and spirits. This is a common myth about Islamic criminal law. Rather, the four witness requirement applies only to the prescribed hadd punishment (which in the case of a married person could be death and for the non-married, 100 lashes). [Marghinani, Hidaya] This punishment is only applied in very rare cases, as is clear, and is meant to be a social deterrent, above
all.As the classical and contemporary jurists (such as Mufti Taqi Usmani) have made clear, a rapist can be convicted on lesser evidence (including scientific evidence, such as DNA tests and medical reports) for discretionary punishments. These discretionary punishments are left up to the legal system to determine.
However, it is a myth to say that Islam would in any way condone rape, or allow a rapist to go free for this terrible crime against an innocent human being and against society.
And Allah alone gives success.
Faraz Rabbani
Images of Hajj
I live vivaciously through the lives of others. Every Ramadan, I my free time at work browsing through the yahoo news photos of Ramadan celebrations around the world. Ramadan in the Twin Cities isn’t bad, but it just isn’t this or this. Seeing muslims celebrate, breaking their fast, making salat, and going about their daily lives during that sacred month helps me feel more connected to the muslim ummah.
And now it’s hajj, so I will once again live vivaciously through pictures of pilgrims as they are in the midst of what is probably the highlight of their lives. I apologize for the formatting below. No matter how many times I fix it, it just goes right back to looking silly.
Ya Rabb, may my husband and I get to make hajj soon inshaAllah!
Dhul Hijjah continues
So, I’m at my parents’, exchanging gifts for that holiday, oh, what’s it’s name, that occurs at the end of December? I still haven’t managed to get up the gumption to tell them that I’d rather come on the 26th or 27th to exchange gifts, and avoid the 25th. I have no guts. *hangs head* Well, at least I drove in this morning, to avoid being guilted into attending church yesterday.
Anywho, last year, Sunni Sister put together a fantastic list of readings about Dhul Hijjah. Go, read. After all, iqra was Allah (swt)’s first command.
Art of the Pen
Have I mentioned that I love Islamic art? Maybe once or twice, or a million times?
Penmanship is a spiritual geometry fashioned by a material
instrumentThe art of Islamic penmanship is a bridge between the spiritual and material; the visual and the verbal. It is a living tradition that has the capacity for self-renewal enabling Soraya Syed to adopt a contemporary approach while remaining true to her artistic heritage and the many years of study linking her to the calligraphy masters of the past…
FOR EVERYTHING THERE IS A CURE AND THE CURE OF (AILING) HEARTS LIES IN THE REMEMBRANCE OF GOD
Ah, moon issues once again
The biggest moon fight usually occurs a few days before Ramadan, and then a few days before Eid al Fitr. This year was especially exciting, as we added a new dimension to the usual local sighting vs. international sighting debate with the Fiqh Council of North America declared that they were following calculations rather than physical sightings.