Friday Nasiha

Living The Quran

Propensity to Change
Al-Baqarah (The Cow) - Chapter 2: Verse 135

And they say: "Be Jews or Christians, you will be rightly guided" Say: "Nay! (we follow) the religion of Ibrahim, the upright one, and he was not of the polytheist."

The differences and divisions, the schisms and sects, which the proponents of Judaism and Christianity call to, have actually originated from their own desires; they are just a few toys manufactured by them. They are in great disputations, schisms and disagreements, they are divided into numerous sects and religious groups, they have dyed the religion of Allah - the religion of Unity, the religion of Oneness - with colors of their bias and prejudice, their desires and ambitions. But the religion is not divided; it is one, in the same way as God, Who is to be worshipped, is One; it is the religion of Ibrahim; the Muslims should firmly keep hold of this original religion, discarding the differences and dissensions of the People of the Book aside.

Although the life in this world looks like a constant phenomenon, in reality it is continuously changing. The same applies to the entire natural world. Even the rites, customs and manners of various nations and groups are not immune from this propensity to change. More often than not, it causes changes and deviations even in religious matters. Sometimes extraneous things are inserted in religion; at other times, an essential part is declared anathema; worldly goals and ideals replace the Divine and religious goals and aims. What a tragedy is it for religion! When it happens, the religion is dyed in national or tribal color, and starts calling to a goal other than the original one; it focuses its sight on innovations, forgetting its original purpose. In a short while, the evil (i.e., the innovation) becomes virtue. People support and defend it, because it agrees with their desires and cravings. And the virtue is treated as evil; it has no protector or defender to stand for it. Ultimately, the things deteriorate to unbelievable extent, as we are seeing with our own eyes today.

It is the reply of their claims. The Prophet should tell them: Nay! we follow the religion of Ibrahim, the upright one; because it is the one religion which was followed by all your prophets - Ibrahim and all those who came after him. Ibrahim, who brought this religion, was not a polytheist. Had there been so many divisions in his religion - the divisions which were attached to it by the innovators - he would have become a polytheist: That which is not a part of Allah's religion cannot invite towards Allah, it will surely call to something other than Allah - and this is what polytheism means. The religion of Ibrahim is the religion of unity; it does not contain anything that is not from Allah.

Compiled From:
"Tafsir Al-Mizan" - Muhammad Hussein Tabatabai

Understanding The Prophet's Life

Sacred Conversation

There is a time of night when the whole world transforms. During the day, chaos often takes over our lives. The responsibilities of work, school, and family dominate much of our attention. Other than the time we take for the five daily prayers, it is hard to also take time out to reflect or even relax. Many of us live our lives at such a fast pace, we may not even realize what we’re missing.

However there is a time of night when work ends, traffic sleeps, and silence is the only sound. At that time—while the world around us sleeps—there is One who remains awake and waits for us to call on Him. We are told in the hadith qudsi:

“Our Lord descends during the last third of each night to the lower heaven, and says: ‘Is there anyone who calls on Me that I may respond to him? Is there anyone who asks Me that I may give unto him? Is there anyone who requests My Forgiveness that I may forgive him?’” (Bukhari and Muslim)

One can only imagine what would happen if a king were to come to our door, offering to give us anything we want. One would think that any sane person would at least set their alarm for such a meeting. If we were told that at exactly one hour before dawn a check for $ 10,000,000 would be left at our doorstep, would we not wake up to take it?

Allah subhanahu wa taala (exalted is He) has told us that at this time of night, just before dawn, He will come to His servants. Imagine this. The Lord of the universe has offered us a sacred conversation with Him. That Lord waits for us to come speak with Him, and yet many of us leave Him waiting while we sleep in our beds. Allah comes to us and asks what we want from Him. The Creator of all things has told us that He will give us whatever we ask.

And yet we sleep.

Compiled From:
"Reclaim Your Heart" - Yasmin Mogahed

Blindspot!

Male Conscience

Women have always been present among the ranks of the ulama, but their role has almost always been invisible. Of the inestimable library of books produced by scholars of the Shariah before the twentieth century, no more than a handful issue from the hands of women. As one fourteenth-century (male) jurist observed with more pride than disapproval, it was surely the Shariah’s emphasis on female modesty and protecting women’s honour that prevented them from a greater role in scholarship, though he notes that many of the greatest scholars would issue fatwas with their learned wives’ or daughters’ signatures attached in approval. Women won respect as Sufi ascetics, and continue to be sought out as transmitters of Hadiths and the Quran to this day. But the urge to keep them from the pulpit has only grown stronger as Muslim communities and Islam’s global religious universe feel ever more encroached upon by outsiders. Muslims seek instinctively to guard a sense of authentic tradition by staking out the ground of women’s bodies and voices.

Clearly, woman-led, mixed-congregation prayers are not established practice in the Islamic tradition. But they are not unprecedented or as controversial as many think. The Hadith of Umm Waraqa proves that the Prophet commanded at least one woman to lead a mixed congregation in prayer. A woman-led Friday prayer, with the sermon delivered by a woman, is clearly a novelty. But none of the ulama’s objections to it rest on any firm, direct scriptural evidence, and solutions exist to the concerns they raise. Muslims today thus find themselves faced with a question: in the absence of opposing evidence from scripture, does simply adhering to how things have always been done justify denying half of the population the right to public religious leadership? It is revealingly plain that if this issue did not involve the knot of gender and power, the evidence for permitting it would carry the day without controversy.

That fact casts light on a dark and unworthy place in the male conscience. A humbling reminder of this is found in the life of Ibn Taymiyya, a learned and conservative Hanbali don but also an iconoclast unintimidated by mainstream censure. He used to admit how impressed he was by one Fatima bint Abbas (d. 1315), a female Hanbali scholar who had mastered the greatest works of law and took to the pulpits of Damascus mosques to harangue and inspire a sinful public with her preaching. Despite his respect for her, Ibn Taymiyya recalled that he had marked reservations about her speaking in the mosque pulpit. He intended to put a stop to it. Then the Prophet came to him in a dream. ‘This is a righteous woman,’ the Messenger of God counselled him. The inimitable scholar, who had stood unperturbed before sultans and had smashed idols, held his tongue.

Compiled From:
"Misquoting Muhammad" - Jonathan A.C. Brown, pp. 197-199