online rihla

you’d better not cry

better not pout I’m telling you why

Imam Zaid is coming, to town!

Ok, so I have this weird habit of making up lyrics to old christmas carols, cuz, well, I’m weird.

FRIDAY:
May 16th Friday Jumaa - Khutbah by Imam Zaid
Masjid Ar Rahman at 12:45PM
http://www.mccminnesota.org/

Friday Evening:
Fundraiser for Somali Qubaa Masjid.
Time and Location to be announced later…

SATURDAY:

An intensive 2-day workshop at Masjid an Nur.

Marriage, Family and Islam
Sat 10-5 & Sun 10-4
Location:  visit www.MasjidanNur.org
$40 (adult) $30 (student)
One day only $25 (adult) and $15 (student)
Registration will be onsite,

Space is limited so we need your cooperation.

Please RSVP via the website below to assist us in planning.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=uT84Bk1wjCLNpKvsUrj61w_3d_3d

Sat evening: Ethical Foundations for Islamic Civilization

Time:  7-10PM
Location: Metropolitan State University, St Paul Campus
700 East Seventh Street
St Paul, MN
Free lecture:

Word:(To) Squee
Definition:To make hyper, usually high pitched sound expressing fangirly glee. Often has additional E’s to further emphasise level of giddyness. See also:(To) Heen
Part of Speech [eg, verb]:Noun/Verb
Example of Usage: “OMG CUDDY TOUCHED HOUSE’S SHOULDER! SQUEEEEE!!”

OMG, I’m such a fangirl. Yes, in all the normal ways (Stargate, Firefly, Buffy, Star Wars, House, etc etc etc), but there are 2 types of people that I am totally a fan of:

Muslim Politicians and
Muslim Scholars

Keith Ellison, first muslim in congress, goes to my masjid. When he’s in town, he’ll be there for Friday prayer. Whenever I see him, I get all giddy, and tongue tied. I don’t think I’ve managed to ever have a substantial conversation with him since he’s been elected.
I had the opportunity to meet Sh. Hamza Yusuf a few years back. He was speaking at a program I was attending, and I passed him in the hall. Again, went all giddy and got tongue tied. I managed to spit out a salaams, but that was all.

Ok, so why all the squee-tastic fangirlness?  Because SOMEONE is coming to the Twin Cities this weekend to plan AN AWESEOME PROGRAM with AWESOME MUSLIM SCHOLARS and I GET TO HELP!!!!  I got the email last night, and I’m still all giddy and tongue tied.  Plus, my hands are shaking as I type this.   I’m not sure if I can name names, but sufice to say, the Twin Cities is in for a real treat.

To watch when I get home from work:

Clip from SunniPath Answers Live event. This answer addresses the issue of Ashari vs. the Maturidi tenets of belief. Answered by Shaykh Hamza Karamali.

NPR has recently featured two stories about muslims working in an environmentally friendly manner in two very different ways.

 First, there is a story on the group Solar Cities in Cairo, who are devoloping solar water heaters at the grass roots level for inhabitants of medieval Cairo.  Not only are they tackling environmental issues, they’re also doing interfaith work as well.  Muslims and Christians make up the organization, and they serve both communities.

 And his young team says that fighting over religion, politics, class and culture wastes time in an urgent period of environmental upheaval.

“If we’re still thinking Christian, Muslim, Christian, Muslim, we will never move and we will stay in our place. We’ll never do anything,” Fathy says.

Second, we have Abu Dhabi using some of it’s enormous oil wealth to build the first carbon neurtral city.

The project, called Masdar City, will burn no gas or oil, so its contribution to greenhouse gases will be minimal. Masdar is the centerpiece of emirate Abu Dhabi’s plans to get into the renewable energy market, a hedge against the day its oil wells run dry.

Two groups of muslims working towards a healthier planet, one from the grassroots, one from the top down.  inshaAllah more members of our ummah will wake up and take part in the green revolution.

MashaAllah, Allah (swt) has blessed me with a roof over my head and food on the table.  Unfortunately, I’m not too good at managing my intake of food, which has lead to a host of health problems.  I’ve been struggling with my eating and exercise habits for 2 years without sucess, but inshaAllah I’m on the right path now.  I’m writing down everything I eat, dedicating myself to exercise, and not letting my laziness overwhelm me.  Oh, and it also doesn’t hurt that the husband has bribed me…if I lose 20 pounds by my birthday in September, he’ll buy me a cat, huzzah!

To that end, I’m a member of Sparkpeople, where there’s a muslim sister support group.  Today, a sister posted a thought provoking question

Does anyone sees the irony of us trying to lose weight and eat less, when there’s a major, worldwide food shortage going on?

The price of the whole wheat pita bread the husband adores went up 50 cents since we last bought it 2 weeks ago, but that’s nothing compared to the jump of prices people are facing across the world.  The husband is originally from Mahalla el-Kubra, home of the recent strikes/food riots, where food prices have doubled.

Allah (swt) tests us all in different ways.  For my in laws, they struggle with too little food that costs too much.  For me here in the US, I struggle with too much food that, despite the recent increases, is still very affordable.

Wouldn’t it be great if we thanked Allah (swt) when we succeed in our struggles?  And what better way to thank Him right now than to give sadaqah to those who are also struggling. 

I’m going to pledge $x for each pound I lose to Islamic Relief’s Global Food Crisis Campaign, and I invite anyone else out struggling to lose weight to do the same.

The husband and I recently made the switch to eating zabiha slaughtered meat only.  On occasion, fast food commercials will tug at my heart strings when I think that I’ll never again have a chicken breast from KFC or a double cheeseburger from Burger King (at least here in the US).  But, for the most part, I’m over it.  We’re eating more vegetarian food at home, and the zabiha meat we do eat is often raised in a more humane manner than what we used to get from the local Rainbow.

Today however, I had one of those horrible realizations.  When I was in junior high, our foreign language department packed us all on buses and took us on a four hour bus trip up to the Twin Cities to attend the Festival of Nations.  Now that I live up here, it’s something the husband and I love to do every year.  My favorite part?  The food.  Ah, but alas, much of it isn’t zabiha.  Heart drops, dark pit forms in the stomach, nooooooooooooo!  Maybe the food from some countries (egypt, pakistan, somali?) will be, but I’m not getting my hopes up.

 Ah well, at least pisan goran is vegetarian.

Iqra!

The first word revealed to our beloved Prophet  was a command - iqra - to read, to recite.  As I’ve mentioned in the past, the Quran was what drew me to Islam.   I read it voraciously at first, and sought to own as many copies as I could afford.  I’m reluctant to admit, but now more often than not, my extensive Qur’an collection sits and gathers dust.  Rarely have I picked them from their place of honor on the top shelf of my religious books collection and engaged with them. 

Every once in awhile, I’ll vow that I’ll read the entire quran.  But, inevitably I’ll fail.  I’m a fast reader, and over the years, I’ve perfected a form of skim reading that allows me to get the gist of a novel or textbook without actually having to read each word.  However, this method does not translate well into Iqra or into understanding.  I’ll turn page after page, only to realize later that I have no clue what my eyes just passed over.  I’m aware of the problem and will conciously try to slow down, but the habit dies hard.  Eventually, I get frustrated and quit.

In an effort to break the slump, I’ve decided to WRITE! while I read.   Everyday, inshaAllah, I’m dedicating 20 minutes to the Qur’an.  Half of that time, I will read x number of ayat, first in the Muhammad Asad translation with commentary, then in one or 2 other translations.  I have a journal I bought specifically to become my quran diary, and in it, I’ll write about those ayat.  Questions, thoughts, reflections, how these ayat relate to my life, it just has to be something related to the verses.  The second 10 minutes will be dedicated to reading the ayat in arabic. 

I know 20 minutes isn’t a terribly long period of time.  Heck, I spend more time each night watching television.  But, I figure that if I set a larger block of time out, like an hour, that when things get busy, I’ll just shuffle quran reading time down to the bottom of the list and skip it.  By chosing a shorter period of time, it’s more managable and inshaAllah that means I will be more likely to do it every day.  

The goal then, will be to read the entire quran in english and arabic, AND to understand it.  What good is it if I skim through, and when I’m finished I gain nothing?  inshaAllah with this endevour, I’ll develop my relationship with the book and with it’s author, Allah .

Want to take this journey for yourself?  Here are some resources that may help you along the way:

• The Qur’anic Journal: why and how?
• al Tafsir
• Soundvision’s Qur’an Page
• Easy Dictionary of the Qur’an
• The Qur’an: A user’s guide

Dear readers, please share any resources you have or any thoughts on how you engage with the Qur’an, and how you seek to understand it better.

Via a post on Islamica, I’ve been reminded of a very powerful hadith.  I dare say that this hadith is one that has had the single greatest impact on my iman.  Seriously, we’re standing in front of our Lord (swt) 5 times a day, speaking to Him and we know HE ANSWERS!   He’s speaking to us, and giving us what we ask for in al Fatiha.  If that doesn’t make one stop and think about what they’re rattling off, I don’t know what will.

On the authority of Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), who said:

“A prayer performed by someone who has not recited the Essence of the Qur’an (Surat al-Fatihah) during it is deficient (and he repeated the word three times), incomplete.”
Someone said to Abu Hurayrah: [Even though] we are behind the imam? ( i.e. standing behind the imam listening to him reciting al-Fatihah)

He said: Recite it to yourself, for I have heard the Prophet (may the blessings and peace of Allah be up on him) say:

Allah (mighty and sublime be He), had said: ‘I have divided prayer between Myself and My servant into two halves, and My servant shall have what he has asked for.

When the servant says:

‘Al-hamdu lillahi rabbi l-alamin’ (Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds), Allah (mighty and sublime be He) says: ‘My servant has praised Me.’

And when he says:

‘Ar-rahmani r-rahim’ (The Merciful, the Compassionate), Allah (mighty and sublime be He) says: ‘My servant has extolled Me,’

And when he says:

‘Maliki yawmi d-din’ (Master of the Day of Judgement), Allah says: ‘My servant has glorified Me’ - and on one occasion He said: ‘My servant has submitted to My power.’

And when he says:

‘Iyyaka na budu wa iyyaka nasta in’ (It is You we worship and it is You we ask for help), He says: ‘This is between Me and My servant, and My servant shall have what he has asked for.’

And when he says:

‘Ihdina s-sirata l- mustaqim, siratal ladhina an amta alayhim ghayril-maghdubi alayhim wa la d-dallin’ (Guide us to the straight path, the path of those upon whom you have bestowed favours, not those against whom You are angry, nor of those who are astray ), He says: ‘This is for My servant, and My servant shall have what he has asked for.’”

It was related by Muslim (also by Malik, at-Tirmidhi, Abu-Dawud, an-Nasa’i and Ibn Majah).

Via Deenport, I stumbled upon the website of the International Institute for the study of Islam in the Modern World.  Isim was founded by several dutch universities, and “…develops, supervises, and engages in innovative, high quality research on social, political, cultural, and intellectual trends and movements in contemporary Muslim communities and societies.” 

They have several years worth of their review up.  Each issue contains several topics, with a number of articles on each topic.  Looks to be something worth checking out.

As a child, family vacations consisted of each child carefully packing a box of books and colored pencils, my mom baking weeks worth of almond chocolate chip muffins and everyone piling into the family van for a 3 week road trip to some scenic and/or historic american destination.  On these family vacations, I developed a great love of history and it’s preservation.  Walking the battlefields at Yorktown and Gettysburg, viewing the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln’s stovepipe hat, following the Oregon Trail westward, earning countless junior ranger badges, american history came alive.  History wasn’t simply something printed on the pages of textbooks.  No, it was something to touch, to see, to experience, to live.   I feel my life is fuller having experienced the history of my country.  I better understand my country, and what it means to be an american.

Imagine my disapointment then, when I first visited the Great Pyramids of Giza and found it was one big tourist trap.  Certainly, there were some highlights, such as the solar barque preservation building, but mostly, it was a bunch of ducking and avoiding men and boys trying to show you secret hidden chambers or get you to overpay for a ride on a poor, mangy camel.  Later trips to historic mosques like al Azhar were mared by janitors demanding enormous amounts of baqsheesh for special tours to places we could have gone to on our own.

But, at least the pyramids and these mosques were still there.  Muslim history, OUR history, has been steadily destroyed right under our very noses by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for decades.  Want to follow in the Prophet’s (saws) footsteps?  Good luck trying to find them.

Is the danger of grave worship and bida so dangerous that we must wipe our history from the face of the earth?  Should not future generations be able to visit these places where the blessed Prophet (saws) and his companions walked, to touch, to see, to experience, to live?  Companions of the Prophet (saws) strove to walk in the Prophet’s footsteps, literally.  They loved him so much that they followed him physically, with their bodies, as well as in their hearts.

Should not muslims today be allowed these same opportunities?  Do we not love the Prophet (saws) and want to imitate him as his companions did?  Cannot these brushes with our history increase our love for the Prophet (saws) and his sunnah, help us to better understand who we are, where we came from, and what it means to be a muslim?

Now, that rant aside, via 13 Martyrs, there is some good news:

The Supreme Council for Tourism plans to open a number of museums across the country including an Islamic museum in Makkah, a Qur’an museum in Madinah and a major one in Jeddah.

It is a very welcome development. Awareness both abroad and at home of the country’s heritage and history ranges, with one or two notable exceptions, from poor to abysmal. The consequences of that are seen in the way historic sites have been left to rot or destroyed altogether to make way for the new — with no concern whatsoever for what is being lost. For the past 40 years or so, the past has been studiously ignored. It was perhaps understandable in the rush for development.