argh!

So there’s this forum, yeah?  Aimed at new muslims.  I thought I’d join, cuz yah know, I used to be a new muslim, so maybe my experiences could be helpful.  Before I start posting, I google my usual sources to see how they’re accepted - sunnipath, Sh. Hamza, et al.

Last edited by justoneofmillion : 09-26-2008 at 11:18 AM. Reason: Hamza Yusuf not allowed

Why is it that this particular brand of Islam is doing all the dawah?  This is by far the largest new muslim website/forum out there, at least that I’ve found. 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  We all have biases.  There’s no such thing as “just a muslim.”  At least be honest and be open about your biases.  If you’re salafi, then tell people up front. 

For all the teeny boppers and annoying know it alls, islamica is still the place to be (if you’re under 30, or have a very high tolerance for teenage antics).

“traditionalism” hits mainstream media

Egypt’s Grand Mufti Counters the Tide of Islamic Extremism

Adapting. One thing is absolutely clear, though: Gomaa’s unshakable confidence repeated as often by his protegees as by him”that the inherent moderation and pragmatism of traditionalist Islam make it far superior to anything proposed by puritanical Salafists or Wahhabis or utopia-minded Islamists. Through the centuries and across cultures and continents, Islam spread and flourished, they all say, precisely because the principles of sharia were applied and interpreted in light of changing reality. Apart from supporting bedrock principles of the faith as set forth in the Koran and the hadith (the authoritative accounts of the words and deeds of the Prophet), Islamic jurists sought to make the lives of Muslims easier, not more difficult, through their realistic application of religious law. As Gomaa sees it, what the best Muslim jurists have always done is to focus on the intent of sharia to foster faithfulness, dignity, intellectual growth, and other core values. Called al makased, this method of seeking to apply the law through an understanding of its purposes is at the core of Gomaa’s scholarship and jurisprudence and is being spread by his scores of students and followers. 

But there have always been in Islam, as in other religions, the terrible simplifiers, the puritans who, like the 18th-century Arabian cleric Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, claim not only to streamline the faith but to return it to basic principles. Often called Salafists, such Muslims in more recent times have also presented themselves as modernizers and reformists. The more political among them, the Islamists, have additionally sought to make Islam into a political program to replace secular forms of government.

Tossing out centuries of reasoned reflection upon the meaning of sharia and discounting the importance of most schools of jurisprudence, these puritans reduce the law to selected passages from the Koran and the hadith and, as the traditionalists see it, distort the intent of sharia by taking the chaff for the wheat. “Their fast-food jurisprudence has led to great intolerance,” says Suhaib Webb, a 36-year-old American convert to Islam who came to Al-Azhar University from California precisely to learn the classical traditions of jurisprudence. “The classical discourse dealt with reality,” Webb says. “The modern discourse is utopian. Ali Gomaa is respected because he deals with reality.”

Interesting.  Rather than throw about words like “moderate muslim” without giving a coherent definition, here’s an article that actually seeks to grasp the changes in islamic jurisprudence in the last few centuries, and define these different movements. 

As for GM Gomaa, I can’t same much about him.  I have his autograph (ok, his signature) on my official al Azhar conversion papers.  That’s about it.  *Puts study the history of al-Azhar on list of things to do*

Should I stay or should I go?

Ah, yes, the insideousness of music, that I still have Clash lyrics running through my head, despite not being a huge fan?  But I digress…

Should I stay on message boards where the scholars I follow and the way I study Islam is banned?  I’m speaking specifically IslamicBoard.com and Islamway Sisters.  I’m shafi’i in my madhab, and potentially shadhili in my tariq, but the scholars I admire (like Sh. Hamza Yusuf and Sh. Nuh Keller) and the websites I rely on (like Sunnipath) are considered sectarian, and therefore are not allowed.

The whole problem with that scheme is that these two forums are in and of themselves sectarian - they promote salafism, but they bury their heads in the sand and refuse to acknowledge this fact.  Sure, they practice Islam, but they approach it in a salafi manner, just as I approach Islam from a shafi’i perspective.

I’m increadibly frustrated at the moment.  On one hand, there’s a lot of dawah opportunities on these sites.  On the other, can I really effectively do dawah if I have one hand tied behind my back?

I just want someplace to hang out online where I can be myself, sigh.

Ya Latif!

Rise and Fall of the Salafi Dawah

Br. Umar Lee has been writing an excellent blog series on the Rise and Fall of the Salafi Dawah in the United States. As someone who has never identified with the salafi movement, it has provided me an insight into an area of American Islam that I have little experience in.

The series is not finished yet, so be sure to check back

The Rise and Fall of the Salafi Dawah in the United States

Difference of opinion

Rrrr. First, let me start off by saying I am not a sufi, but rather an admirer of the science of tasawwuf. I don’t have the dedication to completely immerse myself in tasawwuf, but it’s one of the things that I hope to explore later in life, when I get other basics down.

My husband comes from a long line of Egyptian sufis. His grandfather was even a sufi sheikh. My husband, however, has rejected sufism in favor of a more Qur’an and Sunnah based approach found in the works of Ibn Hazm. He is not, however, a salafi. Despite his rejection of sufism, he doesn’t seem to mind (too much) that I carry on a love affair with sufism and with dhikr. He certainly isn’t fond of sufism, but he does read pro-sufism articles from time to time.

I post (on occasion) on Islamway Sister’s forum. While I was aware that they are salafi, I haven’t felt too alienated from them until yesterday. One of my friends posted a link to one of my favorite websites - Sunnipath. It was deleted, because Sunnipath is a “sufi site.” Rrrr. So today, someone else started a thread asking what sufism is. I posted a link to an article by Sheikh Nuh Keller that was a response to claims that sufism is bidah. Now, it just so happened that others on the thread had made the claim that sufism is a bidah. Of course, the mods deleted the link, and proceeded to post how sufism was in fact a bidah, and that Sheikh Nuh is a bidah too.

I’ve encountered this attitude on other salafi leaning sites as well, like LI Islamic Forum, where my links to Sunnipath and Zaytuna have been deleted.

I lurk more than post on Sunniforum, and although this is a very strict madhab based website, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them delete links to salafi based sites. They certainly warn against salafi authors and books, but I haven’t seen anything as extreme as I’ve encountered on islamway and LI islamic forum.

Perhaps my favorite forum out there is Islamicaweb, which I joined shortly after I converted to Islam. It’s populated mainly by teens and 20 something young desis, with a mix of other ummah members thrown in. Most of the posters are muslim, some salafi, some more madhab based, but there has always been a free mix of ideas and exchange of opinions. I like that.

It seems to me that it would be best to present both perspectives, carry on a little debate, and then let people decide for themselves which members of the ulema they would like to follow. That’s what I have in my marriage. DH will talk about Ibn Hazm, I’ll look to a more madhab based approach, we may disagree, but in the end, both points of view are presented.

Meh.