I Found This Quite Amusing …

It’s amazing what one can find browsing through WordPress’s Tag Surfer. Take this one person, for example. I came across his blog the other day while scrolling through the Tag Surfer and seeing his Is God impotent? Evil? or non-existent? post. Throughout his blog he shows a great deal of enmity and hostility to anything remotely religious (he’s an atheist, so he’s obviously retarded intelligent). He shows particular disdain for Muslims claiming that “all religious people are complete idiots, without the ability to think for themselves. However one group clearly has the lead in stupidity, the Muslims.” I find this quite amusing considering the fact that in my brief perusal of his blog thus far, he’s displayed a tendancy to misspell words you wouldn’t think a person who claims to be “far! intellectually superior to” religious people would misspell. Examples of this are his renditions of: philosopher (philosofer), mosque (mosk—several times!), and Rwanda (Rowanda). You would think someone so “intellectually superior” to people of religion would at least have enough sense to make use of WordPress’s spell-check feature, if even just once in a blue moon … but then again, someone so self-deluded might think his supposed superiority excludes him from the need to do so, so probably not.

In any case, I wanted to take a look at some of the (il)logical questions pertaining to evil mentioned by this person in his Is God impotent? post. He writes,

Are Women Inferior to Men?

Being that I’ve recently taken part in a few discussions pertaining to women’s issues on various blogs (among them: A Woman’s Duty? and Send Your Wife to Obedience School), I thought that I would post the following email when I saw it in my inbox. It’s an article originally found on IslamicWeb.com that was reviewed and edited by the brothers at Asaala.com (which is supervised by the students of Imam al-Albânî in Jordan). The topic relates to some of the underlying thoughts that usually arise when the issues mentioned are discussed so I thought that posting this article would be fairly beneficial to those who read it, Allah willing.

Are Women Inferior to Men? 

Taken from: islamicweb.com
Reviewed and slightly modified by: www.asaala.com

Learning Arabic On Your Own

Quite some time ago, a discussion took place on the now defunct Siraat.net messageboard regarding people’s experiences in learning Arabic with members sharing their experiences, giving tips and things of the sort. On another forum I was a member of, a sister had asked me how I learned Arabic (I’m still learning, by the way), so I took what I had written on Siraat.net and adapted it for that other forum. I thought those tips may be of some benefit to those who visit my blog, so I’m reposting it here.

The ‘Wahhabi’ Nemesis …

A friend of mine sent me the link to this interesting article pubished on The Muslim Weekly written by brother Abdul-Haq al-Ashanti of SalafiManhaj.com titled The ‘Wahhabi’ Nemesis Exposing Those Responsible for Terror in the UK. I thought I’d share it with those who visit my blog.

Here’s a snippet from the article:

Dr Natana DeLong-Bas superbly states in chapter six of her book Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad:

The global jihad espoused by Osama bin Laden and other contemporary extremists is clearly rooted in contemporary issues and interpretations of Islam.  It owes little to the Wahhabi tradition, outside of the nineteenth-century incorporation of the teachings of Ibn Taymiyya and the Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah into the Wahhabi worldview as Wahhabism moved beyond the confines of Najd and into the broader Muslim world. The differences between the worldviews of bin Laden and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab are numerous.  Bin Laden preaches jihad; Ibn Abd al-Wahhab preached monotheism.  Bin Laden preaches a global jihad of cosmic importance that recognizes no compromise; Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s jihad was narrow in geographic focus, of localized importance, and had engagement in a treaty relationship between the fighting parties as a goal.  Bin Laden preaches war against Christians and Jews; Ibn Abd al-Wahhab called for treaty relationships with them.  Bin Laden’s jihad proclaims an ideology of the necessity of war in the face of unbelief; Ibn Abd al-Wahhab preached the benefits of peaceful coexistence, social order, and business relationships.  Bin Laden calls for the killing of all infidels and the destruction of their money and property; Ibn Abd al-Wahhab restricted killing and the destruction of property… The militant Islam of Osama bin Laden does not have its origins in the teachings of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and is not representative of Wahhabi Islam as it is practiced in contemporary Saudi Arabia, yet for the media it has come to define Wahabbi Islam in the contemporary era.  However, “unrepresentative” bin Laden’s global jihad of Islam in general and Wahhabi Islam in particular, its prominence in headline news has taken Wahhabi Islam across the spectrum from revival and reform to global jihad.[1]

Note: [1] Natana DeLong Bas, Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp.278-279

Read on … The ‘Wahhabi’ Nemesis Exposing Those Responsible for Terror in the UK

Heedlessness & Negligence

So far brother Kamil has regularly been adding a new article to his blog every month. This month’s entry is on heedlessness and negligence (al-ghaflah). From the article:

A common disease that we find among many Muslims today is the disease of Al-Ghaflah. Al-Ghaflah is the Arabic word for heedlessness or negligence, in the Islamic context it is the sin of forgetting Allah and the purpose behind one’s existence and one’s duty to Allah, and simultaneously forgetting one’s eventual abode. This phenomenon is becoming more and more widespread among many Muslims as they move further and further away from their Deen, and indulge themselves deeper into the Dunya and what it has to offer. They get taken away by the fast-paced society they live in today and become forever lost in it as the Dunya pulls them deeper into their state of Ghaflah. Allah has described such people in the Qur’an as having insight into the affairs of the Dunya while being completely heedless and negligent of the affairs of the Akhirah …

Read on here.

 

Doubts & Their Replies: Part 2

By: Shaikh Muhammad Nâsir ad-Dîn al-Albânî  

The Second Doubt: Area

The reply to it is what Ibn Taimiyyah said on pg. 45 of at-Tadmuriyyah:

An existent thing [that is] not Allah could be meant by [the word] ‘area’. Thus it is created like if I meant the Throne itself, or the heavens itself by [the word] ‘area’. What is non-existent [that is] not Allah, exalted is He, could [also] be meant by it,[1] like if I meant what is above the universe by [the word] ‘area’. It is known that the [legislative] text does not contain affirmation of the word ‘area’, like it contains affirmation of exaltedness,[2] levelness,[3] transcendence and ascension to Him, and similar to that. Nor [does it contain] its negation.  And surely, it is known that nothing exists except the Creator and the created. The Creator is unlike the created. Nothing from His essence is in His creation and nothing from His creation is in His essence.