Online Sisters’ Intensive

Stony Brook MSA is having an online intensive for sisters’ this summer on “The Fiqh of Menstruation.” Ustadha Shamira Chothia Ahmed from Zaytuna Institute will be holding classes online for those interested starting July 9th at 2PM EST. For Ustadha Shamira’s biography, please see the end of this post. The course will be conducted based on a text written by Mufti Abdur Rehman ibn Yusuf and his wife, Rashida Eskajee available online through ZamZam Academy. The cost for the entire course is $20- but no one will be turned down due to a lack of funds.

For more info, please visit: http://www.stonybrookmsa.org/2008/06/25/sisters-online-intensive/

Freedom

Freedom is the condition of being “free” from restraints.

Many of us are happy to be a part of the “free world” where we enjoy our lives. We can (for the most part) speak freely; we can practice our religion freely; we have a good amount of freedom in our lives.
Yet- we’re not truly free. Being free almost seems to mean being able to do as you please. But being truly free means being able to overcome certain restraints of human emotion and to act in opposition to them. For instance, there might be a part of me that gets angry when say perhaps someone is rude to me. That anger could very well consume a person, but being free entails that we can overcome this feeling. We can let things that anger us go and act in opposition by perhaps still being polite to that person.

We are perfectly capable of giving into our nafs, allowing it to do what it wishes. Yet- doing so proves nothing about ourselves. It purely indicates that we are not strong-willed, that we are prisoners of the nafs. Combating the nafs and not just giving into desires, shows the strength of a person’s will and the true concept of freedom- not being controlled or consumed by things that are actually detrimental to ourselves even when they come from within “our self”.

My Investment

Part of the “American Dream” as many of us have come to know it is the right of ownership. Many people have sought to earn enough money to one day afford their own house. I’ve heard people exclaim how great it is to finally own their own house after months and months of mortgage payments. I’ve heard people complaining about being tenants and just desiring to save some money to be able to make their claim to a piece of property.

Why, though? Maybe it’s because a house gives you a sense of ease and security. The property is yours and when you pass on, you can give it to your children. The investment in a house is generally a long term one. This is why many people say they’ve lived in the same house since their childhood.

But for the person with the eye on the real long term- one must ask oneself why they’re not investing for their permanent abode. What I mean is…well, I guess it’s often explained how our acts in this world effect our lives in the next.

Recently though, I was given this sort of analogy in terms of being consistent with our ibadah. The most beloved of actions in the sight of Allah are those that are consistent, even if they are little. And it makes sense. Even if we think about our interpersonal relationships- we come to expect a sense of caring and concern from our friends regularly. The best friends are the ones who are always there- not the ones that just show up randomly, right?

Similarly, and on a much larger scale- our actions in coming close to Allah should be regular. This does not diminish the reward of the random acts of good, however, it strengthens the value and worth of little actions done consistently. If without fail, every time you enter a masjid you donate $1, think of the reward of constantly bringing Allah to your mind before the sadaqah. If you donate $250 to the masjid once- that’s great. SubhanAllah. But if you cannot consistently bring forth this idea of giving for the sake of Allah, then perhaps it is better that you give little but more often.

Same thing with reading the Qur’an. We read so many books other than the Qur’an. It is possible for us to make a habit of reading a few ayat a day, a page a day, 1/4 of a juz a day, but we find it so difficult. Why? The incentive is there is it not? Every letter is multipled tenfold, yet many of us would rather read other books and spend our time elsewhere. Why? Is it not important to us? We could consistently save money to buy a new cell phone or a new car or even a new house- but what about our investment in our aakhirah?

Insha’Allah may Allah subhana wa ta’ala grant us the tawfiq to establish regularity in our acts of ibadah and allow us to remain steadfast. May He grant us Jannah and grant us His Mercy. Ameen.

Muslim Deviance? Gimme a Break

A few weeks ago, I was writing a paper on Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations.” For those who haven’t heard of it, it’s a thesis claiming that after the Cold War the next set of conflicts will be between civilizations (as opposed to nationalism, fascism, Nazism, Communism, etc). The premise is that at the core, these civilizations have clashing ideas and therefore conflict is unavoidable. The biggest problem for Huntington however is the Islamic civilization. He believes that the West versus Islam will be the most dangerous conflict (and even worse is if the Confucian civilization aligned with the Islamic civilization!). The thesis gained much popularity after September 11th because people already had a mentality to fear some Muslims. Yet, I strongly disagreed with the thesis. I believe that Huntington got it wrong, neither in theory nor through the study of empirical data is his thesis provable.
The problem is that Huntington paints the world into 8 large blocks and in doing so assumes that by nature, civilizations are practically monolithic. Yet rarely are world politics decided by civilizations. They are decided by politics, by the goals of a nation-state, the desires of political leaders. There is a problem when theories become so simple that they develop into catch phrases- and that is exactly what happened with Huntington’s thesis. It became so overly simple that there were bound to be many, many holes.

Regardless, I seem to be focusing more on the topic of my paper that what I intended to post about!

I was just sent an article by my brother-in-law by the above title. It was written by Jonathon Powers,and I thought I’d share some highlights”

Islamic culture has never been tolerant of Nazism, fascism or
communism. Christianity has spawned all three. Buddhism failed to
resist Japanese militarism and Confucianism provided hospitable to
Maoism. Yes, there was Saddam Hussein but he was an atheistic brute
without an ideology.

Of course, there have been many incidents in the long history of
Islam when there have been large-scale losses of life. The massacres
and starvation of the Armenians in 1915 still stirs the waters of
contemporary debate.

But Islam has never spawned anything comparable with Hitler’s
systematic genocide of the Jews—indeed throughout its history Islam
has been protective of the Jews, regarding them as “people of the
book” to whom it had a special responsibility. Nor has it settled
other parts of the world and systematically obliterated other
civilisations as did Christian Spain with the Aztecs and Incas.

Nor have Islamic societies created anything equivalent to South
Africa’s apartheid or the racist culture of the old American South.
Unlike many Christian churches the mosque has never separated people
by race. Even today Americans confess that nowhere is there more
segregation in their society than at the Sunday noon hour.

Christianity has always been led or dominated by people of European
descent. But the leadership of the Muslim world has been much more
fragmented—between AD 661 and 750 it was the Arab Umayyad dynasty.
Between 750 and 1258 it was the multi ethnic Abbasid dynasty. And
from 1453 to 1922, the Turkish-dominated Ottoman Empire. In India
there was the separate Mughals and in Persia the Safavids. In sub-
Saharan Africa there were the Muslim empires of Mali and Songhai.

Despite their relative poverty today, with great teaming cities like
Cairo, Dacca and Jakarta, criminal violence is much, much lower than
in Christian-influenced societies. Muslim countries, according to the
UN’s annual Human Development report, have the world’s lowest murder
and rape rates. In Teheran, the capital of Iran, and according to the
CIA the most important single source of terrorism today, you can go
out at 11 or 12pm at night and find families with children picnicking
in city parks. When my daughters’ friends ask me where can they
safely travel alone in an interesting Third World city I say Cairo.
Certainly not Catholic Rio or Protestant Cape Town. Not only are
murders and muggings comparatively rarer there is much less
prostitution and hard drug use. Neither is there that much AIDS.

Want to read the entire article? Source

Our MSA made it to the Newspaper!

Alhamdulillah- an event Stony Brook MSA held on April 7th- called Scarves for Solidarity - made it to the pages of Newsday:

Stony Brook Student Exercise Tackles Predjudice Head-On

A mixed faith group challenged their beliefs and understanding of the Muslim experience in a program aimed at combating prejudice.

Photos by Bob Giglione

Students at Stony Brook University learn many things, but on a recent evening some learned a real-life lesson in how it feels to be a victim of discrimination. A Muslim woman walks into a bakery wearing a hijab, a head covering that symbolizes a commitment to piety and identifies women as followers of Islam. The sales clerk refuses to serve her and continually taunts her about her appearance. Some customers are outraged and speak out on her behalf, but the majority of them do nothing. This scene could be real, but it actually was part of a television show, and the clerk and Muslim woman were actors.

“What Would You Do,” seen on ABC’s Primetime show, gauges people’s reactions — capturing on film whether they will or will not step in to right an injustice. On April 7, it was presented by the Muslim Student’s Association and the Women’s Gender Resources Center at a solidarity event called Scarves for Solidarity.

The initiative to celebrate diversity and combat stereotypes, attended by Stony Brook University President Shirley Strum Kenny, is part of Newsday’s FutureCorps, an initiative engaging local students in meaningful community service.

“We fast, raise money and donate it to charities,” said MSA President Yaser Rad. “The purpose was to get non-Muslim women to wear head scarves and be in their shoes for one day. Money will be donated to a battered women’s shelter.”

About one-third of those gathered were non-Muslims. Junior Anna Holland usually wears a scarf around her neck, but tonight she wore her scarf around her head to show solidarity with Muslim women.

Sophomore Aarti Sheth, also a non-Muslim wearing a hijab, said, “The movie really touched me. It was so real and that’s why it was so scary and upsetting.” Lindsay Bernard, a junior, said, “I wanted to show my support for Muslim women and the challenges of wearing the hijab every day. It’s a small price to pay.” Chaplain Sanaa Nadim said, “Muslim women are a sisterhood and part and parcel of the American fabric. We are lawyers, teachers and so much more. It is essential that they stand together as a whole.”

—By Lynn Zawacki

Source.

Salat al Badriyya

A beautiful rendition by Talib al Habib

Hiatus

Bismillah.

I apologize for the hiatus. This has surely been a busy few months for both Lena and myself. Insha’Allah I’ll get around to posting something soon! (And Lena, if you’re out there.. maybe you’ll come back to posting too!)

Tawakkul

This a story with a really cute message- subhanAllah.

A young man had been to Wednesday Night Class of Quranic Studies. The teacher had shared about listening to Allah and obeying Allah through intuition.

The young man couldn’t help but wonder, ‘Does Allah still speak to people through intuition?’ After Lessons, he went out with some friends for coffee and pie and they discussed the message.

Several different ones talked about how Allah had led them in different ways and that at the end you’ll know it was Allah(SWT) Who has directed you.

It was about ten o’clock when the young man started driving home. Sitting in his car, he just began to pray, ‘Allah…If you still speak to people, speak to me. I will listen. I will do my best to obey.’

As he drove down the main street of his town, he had the strangest thought to stop and buy a gallon of milk. He shook his head and said out loud, ‘Allah is that you?’ He didn’t get a reply and started on toward home.

But again, the thought, buy a gallon of milk came into his head. ‘Okay, Allah, in case that is you, I will buy the milk.’ It didn’t seem like too hard a test of obedience. He could always use the milk. He stopped and purchased the gallon of milk and started off toward home.

As he passed Seventh Street , he again felt the urge, ‘Turn Down that street.’ This is crazy he thought, and drove on past the intersection. Again, he felt that he should turn down Seventh Street ..

At the next intersection, he turned back and headed down Seventh. Half jokingly, he said out loud, ‘Okay, Allah, I will.’ He drove several blocks, when suddenly, he felt like he should stop.

He pulled over to the curb and looked around. He was in a semi-commercial area of town. It wasn’t the best but it wasn’t the worst of neighborhoods either. The businesses were closed and most of the houses looked dark like the people were already in bed.

Again, he sensed something, ‘Go and give the milk to the people in the house across the street.’ The young man looked at the house. It was dark and it looked like the people were either gone or they were already asleep. He started to open the door and then sat back in the car seat. Allah, this is insane. Those people are asleep and if I wake them up, they are going to be mad and I will look stupid.’

Again, he felt like he should go and give the milk. Finally, he opened the door, ‘Okay Allah(SWT), if this is you, I will go to the door and I will give them the milk. If you want me to look like a crazy person, okay. I want to be obedient. I guess that will count for something, but if they don’t answer right away, I am out of here.’ He walked across the street and rang the bell. He could hear some noise inside. A man’s voice yelled out, ‘Who is it? What do you want?’ Then the door opened before the young man could get away.

The man was standing there in his jeans and T-shirt. He looked like he just got out of bed. He had a strange look on his face and he didn’t seem too happy to have some stranger standing on his doorstep. ‘What is it?’ The young man thrust out the gallon of milk, ‘Here, I brought this to you.’

The man took the milk and rushed down a hallway. Then from down the hall came a woman carrying the milk toward the kitchen. The man was following her holding a baby. The baby was crying. The man had tears streaming down his face. The man began speaking and half crying, ‘We were just praying. We had some big bills this month and we ran out of money. We didn’t have any milk for our baby. I was just praying and asking Allah(SWT) to show me how to get some milk.’

His wife in the kitchen yelled out, ‘I ask him to send an Angel with some. Are you an Angel?’

The young man reached into his wallet and pulled out all the money he had on him and put in the man’s hand. He turned and walked back toward his car and the tears were streaming down his face.

He knew that Allah (SWT) still answers prayers.

Ya Rabbana Lakal Hamd!

We all know that everything is written and recorded for us in our books. The angles write everything we say. Well, when a servant of Allah(swt) says the following duaa:

ياربنا لك الحمد كما
ينبغى لجلال وجهك و لعظيم سلطانك

Ya Rabbana, lakal hamdu, Kama Yambaghy, Lijalali Wajhika Wa Aztheemi Sultanik.

Oh Allah, Thanks and gratitude be to You, as much as your magnificence and great authority ought to deserve.

The angels are stumped as to what to write. Why do the angels not know how to write this?

When we say this duaa, and it can be seen from the translation, it is unquantifiable the amount we are thanking Allah (swt), because it is as much as He (swt) ought to deserve, and a number or scale cannot be attached to this. So what do the angels do?

They go up to Allah (swt) and tell Allah(swt), a servant of Yours has something we do not know how to write. Allah(swt) of course knows what we have said, but nonetheless asks the angels what we said. The angels tell Him(swt) the duaa. Allah(swt) then tells the angels to record it exactly as the servant has said and Allah(swt) will reward us when He(swt) meets us on the Day of Judgement.

Isn’t this wonderful to hear? Something as simple as saying this duaa, saying it from our hearts will give us a reward that Allah(swt) will grant us on the Day of Judgement. Imagine that, Allah(swt) will reward us when we see Him(swt) for this small dua that has great meaning! This just shows how wonderful and rewarding this duaa is, and that Allah(swt) is saving our reward for when we meet Him(swt).

Just thought I’d share… Let’s all try to memorize this and start saying it daily. Instead of just saying Alhamdulilah (thanking Allah (swt) once) let us say “Oh Allah, Thanks and gratitude be to You, as  much as your magnificence and great authority ought to deserve.”

-Sent by Sister Soondus

Hadith Source: Sunan Ibn Maja on the authority of Ibn Omar (ra)

What Would You Do, Part Two.

A bit ago I posted a link to a mini series that ABC was doing called “What Would You Do?”. It showcased a hijabi being discriminated against in a certain bakery. This video below is the second half and I’ve gotta admit it made me pretty emotional.

So what are the stats?

13 people stood up for the Muslim (some more vehemently than others)

6 people sided with the clerk who was discriminating against her

and

22 people did NOTHING.

I would sincerely hope that more people would stand up when they have the upper hand.