Serenity Comes from The Quran

I've been having some issues the last few days. I won't go into details, but it has not been fun. In any case, a friend of mine offered me some comfort and words of wisdom. Of course these words came from the Quran.

O you who believe! Take care of your own selves. If you follow the right guidance and enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong no hurt can come to you from those who are in error. The return of you all is to Allah, then He will inform you about (all) that which you used to do." [5:105]

These words are perfect. They give me serenity in times of turmoil, and they show me that to Allah swt, we will return. We all strive to follow the right guidance. Some have different ideas of what that is than others, but if you follow Quran and Sunnah, and enjoin good and forbid evil this ayat tells us that no harm can come to us.

Authentic Statements - Christmas: A Birthday Celebration

Asalamu Alaikum

AuthenticStatements.com is an excellent resource for Islamic knowledge. According to their 'about us' page,

Authentic Statements was primarily established to introduce the Muslims to the scholars of Ahlus-Sunnah and the popular speakers who follow them in knowledge by way of both audio and visual materials.With the Muslims in the west in mind, it is our intention to bridge the gap, which more often than not is no more than a language barrier, with those who invite to Allâh with wisdom and insightful preaching.

I regularly get email updates from the site, and today I received an email with a link to the first of their new monthly newsletter. The topic of the newsletter is very fitting for this time of year and I wanted to share it with my brothers and sisters in hopes that you can benefit from it as well. I'll copy a small excerpt from it to get your started, and please click here for the full PDF newsletter.

There is no doubt that Allah the Glorified and Most High legislated two holidays for the Muslims in which they gather together for remembrance of Allah and prayer, which are Eidul-Fitr and Adha, (given as) a replacement for the pre-Islamic celebrations. He also legislated(other) holidays which include types of remembrance and worship such as Friday, the day of Arafah, and the days of Tashreeq (11th, 12th, and 13th of Thul-Hijjah) and did not legislate Christmas, (a birthday celebration) neither for the prophet (salla Allahualaihi wa sallam) or anyone else and the textual evidence from both the Book and prophetic Traditions demonstrate that these birthday celebrations are innovations in the religion and a form of imitating those that oppose Allah

Revealing Your Sins

I recently read a blog that openly revealed the persons sins. It was almost as if they were proud of the disobedience that they spoke of. I seem to notice this a lot lately and wonder if they are aware of the following hadith

Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) reported: “The Messenger of Allaah (sallallahu `alayhi wa salam) said: “Every member of my nation will be forgiven, except those who expose their wrongdoings. An example of this is that of a man who commits a sin at night which Allaah then conceals, but, the next morning, he goes and says (to people): ‘I committed such and such a sin last night’ - while Allaah had kept it secret. During the night Allaah had concealed it, but in the morning he tore up the cover provided by Allaah Himself.” [Al-Bukhaari & Muslim]

If you want to ignore the commands of our religion, then fine, but don't be so proud of it. Don't write it in your blog like you have no fear, so that everyone can cringe at your ignorance.

Allah Knows What is in My Heart

"Allah knows what is in my heart".... how many times have you heard this from someone who is trying to make excuses for why they don't follow a part of Islam? In one of my classes our teacher brought this up and then reminded us of Surah Al Asr

By time,

Indeed, mankind is in loss,

Except for those who have believed and done righteous deeds and advised each other to truth and advised each other to patience.

So you see, the Quran is telling us that we must do righteous deeds, and advise each other to the truth. Islam is a religion of inner and outer faith. We must believe it in our heart and show it with our actions.

What IS Important?

I'm not sure how to start this post. There are a lot of things running around in my head. I guess this all started a few days ago when someone told me about the head of Al Azhar humiliating a young woman into taking off her niqab and then basically called her ugly. Then a few days later, al Azhar made the move of banning niqab in the classroom. Read more about it here.

As a niqabbi I find this all really disturbing. I find it even more disturbing when I try to talk to other Muslims about it and they tell me I have to respect this man that called for the ban. Why should I? He obviously does not deserve my respect. He went as far as to say that niqab has no place in Islam? Really? So the mothers of the believers were wrong in wearing it? So the top scholars (Bin Bazz, Uthameen, Fawzaan) are wrong when they say its an obligation? I also get the same old lines from people when I discuss niqab. They always bring up that they know a niqabbi who does bad things AND that sometimes men disguise themselves in niqab to gain access to places they should not have access too. What do I say to that? So what! Just because some people do wrong things does that negate the right things? No, it doesn't.

One other response I get is that clothing does not make a Muslim. Yes, that is true, but following the commandments of Allah does. It is one of the same old arguments I get. When it gets down to it... people want to make excuses and throw up barriers. They want to tell me that dressing like an Arab is not required. I don't think I dress like an Arab, I dress like a Muslim, like I was commanded to dress. Just because abaya and niqab happen to fufill these requirements best does not mean it has anything to do with being arab.

Perhaps I'm delving in too deep here, but the resistance that is found at the level of clothing leads to much bigger issues. If you can't give up the fashion of this world for the sake of Allah you are pretty stuck aren't you? As an Ummah we spend so much time trying to redefine boundaries of Islam that we lose sight of what we should be doing. Worshipping Allah subhanna wa ta'alah. There is this wonderful guide book, its called the Quran.... it had everything we need to know. It also instructs us to listen to our Prophet, and we do that by following the hadiths... so whats the big problem here?

While there are other issues to be discussed in Islam, I find that if we can't get past the speed bump of covering properly that we are lost at the starting gate.