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Inside the credibility gap
While justice is not the sole preserve of any community, Muslims have a particular duty to be witnesses to truth even when their own brethren are in the wrong. Why then has the recent call for vigilance in the mosques hit such a nerve? Hassan Scott assesses the impact.
Shariah TV: Clarity or controversy?
Shariah TV, a new show that invites young Muslims to share their challenges with an expert panel, goes
to air this month. Sanjana Deen considers the results.
Film: Hidalgo
In an exclusive interview with Viggo Mortensen (of
Lord of the Rings fame), Zaki Hasan traces a film-maker’s journey to the Middle East.
Shaykh Ahmad Yassin
“I would fight my own brother if he took over my home. I don’t fight Jews because they are Jews. I fight them because they have stolen and arrogated my land, home and orchards and condemned my people to everlasting misery.”
Symbol of Resistance
The assassination by Israel of Hamas founder and spiritual
leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in Gaza on 22 March will
undoubtedly have a profound psychological impact on Hamas, argues Khalid Amayreh.
Conversation with Dr Abdal Aziz Al-Rantissi
An interview by Kul Al-Arab newspaper done three years ago. Dr Al-Rantissi, was murdered by the Israeli army on April 17, was a practicing pediatrician and married with six children.
The future of Palestine according to Ariel Sharon
World-renown Palestinian legislator, Hanan Ashrawi paints a frightening picture.
A grand distortion of the law
Liaquat Ali Khan condemns the flimsy legal justifications for extrajudicial killing.
My tea with the Shaykh
As a graduate student Hussein Hamdani’s academic study of Hamas took him to the West Bank and Gaza where he lived and studied under Israeli army curfews and frequent sieges on his university. But little had prepared him for his unexpected encounter with Shaykh Ahmed Yassin.
Eye to Eye
Palestinian youth, Gihad Ali puts anguish into poetry.
Write Mind: All animals are Allah’s children
”You represent Ihsan – the Islamic Humane Society for Animals? For animals?!” In a time when Muslims are suffering the world over, Yvonne Rogers expects many of us to ask whether there is a need for such an organization. Her response is to the skeptics is always the same: we cannot allow the fact that human beings are suffering to justify the neglect and abandonment of divinely-ordained animal rights.
Fiqh questions answered by Faraz Rabbani
Book extract: A nation of mercy
Extract from Lives of Man by Imam Abdullah ibn Alawi Al-Haddad.
Invocation: Prayer at death
A prayer of Muhammad ibn ash-Shahid al-Jaza’iri. |
FROM THE PULPIT
April 2004, Issue 355
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During such times of violence, ignorance and hatred – of duplicity, bestiality and inhumanity – it is perhaps more difficult but even more necessary to talk about the healing, loving and inspirational nature of the Mawlid – celebration of the birth of the Noble Prophet.
This year the Milad un-Nabi, which falls on the twelfth of Rabi al-Awwal, will be celebrated on May 1. Throughout most of the Muslim world it is an occasion of joy – a time to reflect and celebrate, to recite poetry and sing songs; a time to renew and regain our compassion through reminiscing, admiring and learning about his perfect example. The depth and breadth of the Mawlid celebration is one way of measuring the Islamicity of a society. The more veneration and love a community shows for the Prophet, upon whom be blessings and peace, the more likely it is a community guided by authentic Islamic principles.
It is obvious to any objective observer that groups which fanatically oppose the Mawlid tend to always be those who are violent, irresponsible and reductionists. People who have lost touch with the essence of the faith and, basically, their humanity.
The Mawlid is an exercise in pure love. For centuries it has been the basis of training hearts in the art of loving and adoration. A heart that has learnt to love the Noble Prophet will never be seduced by hatred or anger.
From the Muslim point of view, the Prophet is the symbol of perfection of both the human person and human society. He is the prototype of the individual and the collectivity. As such he bears certain characteristics which can only be discovered by studying the traditional accounts of him. The many Western works on the Prophet, with very few exceptions, are useless from this point of view no matter how much historical data they provide for the reader. The same holds true in fact for the new type of biographies of the Prophet written by modernised Muslims who would like at all cost to make the Prophet an ordinary man and neglect systematically any aspect of his being that does not conform to a rationalistic framework they have adopted a priori, mostly as a result of either influence from or reaction to the modern Western point of view.
The profound characteristics of the Prophet which have guided the Islamic community over the centuries and have left an indelible mark on the consciousness of the Muslim cannot be discerned save through the traditional sources and the Hadith (Prophetic traditions), and of course, the Quran itself which bears the perfume of the soul of the person through whom it was revealed.
The universal characteristics of the Prophet are not the same as his daily actions and day to day life. They are, rather, characteristics which issue forth from his personality as a particular spiritual prototype. Seen in this light there are essentially three qualities. Prof Seyyed Hossein Nasr describes them as thus: “First, the Prophet possessed the quality of piety in its most universal sense, that quality which attaches man to God. The Prophet was in that sense pious. He had a profound piety which inwardly attached him to God, that made him place the interest of God before everything else including himself.
“Secondly, he had a quality of combativeness, of always being actively engaged in combat against all that negated the Truth and disrupted harmony. Externally, it meant fighting wars, either militarily, political or social ones, the wars which the Prophet named the “little holy war” (al-jihad al-asghar). Inwardly this combativeness meant a continuous war against the carnal soul (nafs), against all that in man tends towards the negation of God and His Will, the “great holy war” (al-jihad al-akbar).
“Finally, the Prophet possessed the quality of magnanimity in its fullness. His soul displayed a grandeur which every devout Muslim feels. He is for the Muslim nobility and magnanimity personified.”
During the Mawlid, when one thinks of the Prophet who is to be emulated, it is the image of one who is severe with himself and with the false and the unjust, and charitable towards the world that surrounds him. On the basis of these virtues of strength and sobriety on the one hand and charity and generosity on the other, he is serene, extinguished in the Truth. He is that warrior on horseback who halts before the mountain of Truth, passive towards the Divine Will, active towards the world, hard and sober towards himself and kind and generous towards the creatures about him.
The love of the Prophet – and celebration of the Mawlid – is incumbent upon all Muslims and especially upon those who aspire towards the saintly life. This love must not be understood in an individualistic sense. Rather, the Prophet is loved because he symbolises that harmony and beauty that pervade all things, and displays in their fullness those virtues, the attainment of which allow man to realise his Godly nature.
“Lo! Allah and His angels shower blessings on the Prophet, O ye who believe! Ask blessings upon him and salute him with a worthy salutation.” [33:56]
Fuad Nahdi
Editor in Chief
fuad@q-news.com
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Mohamed Mahdi Akef
The Muslim Brotherhood’s new supreme guide speaks to Azza Khattab on politics, faith, freedom – and his life in sports.
Speak from your heart, not from your fears
Sergeant Omar Masry, an American Muslim reservist serving in Baghdad is witnessing a changing Iraq first hand. The path to peace is not easy but, he argues, in the absence of sanctions and dictatorship, Iraqis finally have a shot at creating a just society.
Wake up and smell the hash!
In an ongoing debate about Muslim drug abuse, Dr Imran Waheed argues that unless we open our eyes and boldly recognize the root causes of the problem, the situation will only worsen.
After Madrid
As the bodies were being pulled from the
wreckage, Nurudin Margarit wrote a letter of peace to his fellow Spaniards. Usman
Hasan reflects on the years he lived in Madrid and finds a startling level of dignity in the response to the attacks.
Open Letter to Athar Yawar
Jamal Butt can never be as good as the mystery man that forever haunts the trainee journalist.
How will Al-Qaeda vote come November?
Al Qaeda not only seems to understand the nature of politics and media in democratic societies but also knows how to work the system to gain strategic advantages,
argues Muqtedar Khan.
A fatherless ummah
Youthful hopes about marital love and the nurturing of children somehow transform at the point of marriage. Men become sacrificial lambs to duty, lineage and tradition, they adopt the “command and control” model of their own fathers. Humera Khan explores the predicament of a new generation of Muslim dads.
In defense of the Muslim male
Are Muslim men bad parents? Many bemoan the state of Muslim fatherhood, but Mohamed Bakari dismisses the jeremiads. He thinks the Muslim man is, as Shakespeare would have put it, a man more sinned against than sinning. Muslim men are no more bad fathers than are men of other faiths caught in up in the trials and struggles of modern life.
Boys to men
When Homer Simpson becomes the quintessential icon of fatherhood, something’s gone very wrong. Nazim Baksh explored the dilemma of raising teenaged sons in a time when dad is just the brunt of another sitcom joke.
Celebrating the mawlid
Qadi Iyad Ibn Musa Al-Yahsubi’s on the necessity of loving the Prophet and Khaled Al-Maeena, on the need to rediscover and reclaim the teachings from his life.
Fiqh Today: Muslims as Minorities
The practice of fiqh has always been characterized by dynamism and flexibility. Understanding the underlying values of the sacred law and how it is derived enables Muslim communities to continuously make Islam relevant to their unique contexts, reports Abdul-Rehman Malik.
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