After a few minutes the father asked his son the third time: What is this? The son said: Father, I have just now told you that this is a crow. After a little while the old father again asked his son the fourth time: what is this? By this time some statement of irritation was felt in the son’s tone when he rebuffed his father: Father! It is a crow, a crow. A little after the father again asked his son: What is this? This time the son replied to his father with a vein of temper. Father: You are always repeating the same question, although I have told you so many times that it is a crow. Are you not able to understand this?

The father went to his room and came back with an old diary. Opening a page he asked his son to read what was written. What the son read were the following words written in the diary:

‘Today my little son was sitting with me in the courtyard, when a crow came there. My son asked me twenty-five times what it was and I told him twenty-five times that it was a crow and I did not at all feel irritated. I rather felt affection for my innocent child.’

The father then explained to his son the difference between a father’s and a son’s attitude. While you were a little child you asked me this question twenty-five times and I felt no irritation in replying to the question twenty-five times and when today I asked you the same question only five times, you felt irritated, annoyed and impatient with me.

Allah mentions in Surah Bani-Israil 17:23-24:

And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him. And that you be dutiful to your parents. If one of them or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of disrespect, nor shout at them but address them in terms of honour.

And lower unto them the wing of submission and humility through mercy, and say: “My Lord! Bestow on them Your Mercy as they did bring me up when I was small.”

The Prophet (PBUH) mentioned that Allah (SWT) said, “Myself, Mankind and Jinn are in a great serious state. I create them, then they worship other gods that they make for themselves; I bless them with my bounties, then they thank someone else for what I sent them; My Mercy descends to them while their evil deeds ascend to Me; I endear them with my gifts even though I have no need to any of them while they alienate themselves from Me with their sins even though they are desperate for my help. Whoever returns to Me, I accept him no matter how far he is; and whoever turns away from Me, I approach him and call on him. Whoever leaves a sin for my sake, I reward him with many gifts and whoever seeks to please Me, I seek to please him. Whoever acknowledges My Will and Power in whatever he does, I make the iron bend for his sake. My dear people are those who are with Me (i.e. whoever would like to be with Me, let him supplicate to Me and remember Me).

Whoever thanks Me, I grant him more blessings; whoever obeys Me, I raise him and endear him more. Whoever disobeys Me, I keep the doors of My Mercy open for him; if he returns to Me, I bestow him with My Love since I love those who repent and purify themselves for My Sake. If he does not repent, I still treat him by putting them in hardship to purify him. Whoever favors Me over others, I favor them over others. I reward every single good deed ten times over or seven hundred times over to countless times over. I count every single bad deed as one unless the person repents and ask for My Forgiveness in which case I forgive even that one. I take into account any little good deed and I forgive even major sins. My Mercy supersedes My Anger; My Tolerance supersedes My Blame; My Forgiveness supersedes My Punishment as I am more merciful with My slaves than a mother with her child.”

Nuqtah aptly described this problem as have many, however it is a must for Muslims to know how to respond to the claims of those wishing to paint Islam to their own colours, whether they be from the enemies of Islam or from within the Muslims themselves.

It is with this goal in mind that I wish to continue the series on the Principles of Argumentation. Basically, it is a series of principles which must be referred to when discussing the interpretation of Islam.

1st principle - Islam is complete and perfect.

a. The religion has been completely revealed
اليوم أكملت لكم دينكم وأتممت عليكم نعمتي ورضيت لكم الإسلام دينا

 This day, I have perfected your religion for you, completed My Favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion. (5:3)

b. The religion has been fufilled in truth and in justice
 وتمت كلمة ربك صدقا وعدلا لا مبدل لكلماته وهو السميع العليم
 

And the Word of your Lord has been fulfilled in truth and in justice. None can change His Words. And He is the All­Hearer, the All­Knower. (6:115)

c. Islam is flawless - there are no errors, imperfections or any type of falsehood in this religion.

d. The deen explains everything - No one can find in it any imperfections, no one is allowed to add anything to it.
ونزلنا عليك الكتاب تبيانا لكل شيء وهدى ورحمة وبشرى للمسلمين
 

And We have sent down to you the Book (the Quran) as an exposition of everything, a guidance, a mercy, and glad tidings for those who have submitted themselves (to Allah as Muslims).(16:89)

So praise Allah, remember Him, and remember that ultimately, He does not ask you to turn Chaos into Order, whether in your life or in the lives of others, since that is not the purpose of Life.

If you’re having problems, if others are in peril, if life seems like everything is collapsing around you, remember that it’s not about you, and not about anyone other than Allah. So when you lay prostrate and glorify Allah the Great in the tongue of the Qur’an, remember that with that you diminish everything else to nothing. You, your prostration on the ground, the room you are in, the people in your proximity, the chaos that spreads by the Will of Allah like a wave over the face of the Earth, the order that comes and goes by the Will of Allah like the tide on the very same planet, the world that ever-changes, the universe that ever-expands; it is all but a spec, a trace, an infinitely small and insignificant instance which will end as fast as it started because God exists.

Think about it if you have spare time some day, when you’re about to come back up from a postration, take some time off and think about that. For me, it puts things back into their perspective.

Thoughts from a brother’s advice

Have you ever been to a masjid for Maghrib or Isha or whatever, and right after the prayer, a few cliques starting forming. A bunch of brothers gather here, and they start talking and laughing, another bunch gather over there, and a buzz starts. It can very well be that they’ll have some meaningful conversation that you wouldn’t want to miss.

Thing is, we don’t often think that we can have a much more meaningful conversation with Allah - through our prayer. By making superogatory prayers, we are effectively holding a conversation with Allah - speaking to Him, asking Him, turning to Him. Moreover, a conversation requires participation from more than one party, or else it would be a soliloquy, or a monologue. The interesting thing about that is that when we recite the Qur’an - this is Allah’s covenant with mankind, the Uncreated Speech of Allah. Subhanallah, our prayer is our talking to Allah, and the Qur’an is Allah’s Speech to us.

So think about it next time you want to have a conversation with someone after Salaah - wouldn’t you rather have a conversation with the Lord of Mankind?

Many of us have jobs, which may pay something like $9.00 an hour for example (i’m talking to students here… heh). Now, when you are getting payed at $9.00 an hour, you are basically making an agreement with your employer that your hour is worth nine dollars. That would mean (by simple mathematics) that every minute of yours is worth exactly 15 cents.

Now, if you are unable to perform two units of superogatory prayer, which may only take perhaps 3 minutes, you’re effectively saying that you basically value those 45 cents more than you value the salah.

Think about it.

Allahu a’lam who came up with the idea, but a recent game of tag has started, and no, its not balloon tag, or freeze tag, but some kind of new morphed blog-tag. The rules are that a person has to tag 6 people and each one of those 6 people must provide a list of ten weird habits/things or little-known facts about themselves, tagging another six people.. and the cycle continues.

So here goes.

1. I’m addicted to books. I keep buying books, even when I’m in the middle of reading other ones, and I’ll take other books from the library, and I’ll borrow books, and I’ll do anything to get more books. I’m literally addicted. Last winter I went to RIS, and by the end of the trip I couldn’t spend anymore on food because all of it went on books.

2. I love to sing. I can’t stop singing. I’ll sing anything by anyone. (Some of you may already know this..) In High School, I was nicknamed ‘Jukebox’, because I kept on singing… and singing… and singing. Some of my favorite songs to sing are ‘I was made for loving you’ and erm… Backstreet boys. Okay, my credibility is completely gone now.

3. I got married. Twice. At the age of 5 years old, I apparently went to a sister and ‘got married with her,’ after which I proceded to get married to another sister, on the next day…

4. I sleep on the floor. Yeah. My parents bought me this huge queen-sized bed, and it was so comfortable that I didn’t like how long I was sleeping, so now I basically spread a blanket on the ground, and sleep on that.

5. I don’t eat hotdogs. I absolutely abhor hotdogs. I can’t stand them. Honestly, if I could find a way to ban hotdogs, I would. Worse than hotdogs themselves, is the smell of hotdogs when people cook them in the microwave. It makes me shudder with disgust.

6. I like to stick things in my beard. I usually like to see how many pens i can stick in my beard. It gives me an insight into how curly/how thick my beard is. Last time I checked, I was able to stick 10 pens inside, but i’m sure it can hold more now, wallahu a’lam. Though, ever since I started using conditoner it doesn’t seem to curl as much or something..

7. I talk to myself. In fact, to be more specific, I give khutbahs to myself. About anything. I like to take long walks to or back from the Masjid and the whole time I’m basically giving myself some weird bayan. I probably get more than one person looking at me strange, but meh.

8. I have a tendancy to hit things. Clumsy is an understatement for me. I just walk into things and they tend to bend/break/move. You see, its not as much why I walked into them as much as why they got in my way. Normal people would possibly move a glass or something. I once moved a fridge. By accident. Another time I was on the phone, and I was walking in circles while doing so, back and forth, back and forth, until I hit a glass which was on the ground. It fell, alhamdulilah there wasn’t any water, so i picked it up, continued to walk… and hit it again. The worse part, is that there were two witnesses to this. After my phone call, I turned to them and told them “hey, i just dropped that glass twice.” They couldn’t stop laughing and were telling me “duh…” as they had been observing me the whole time. Another time I was in the masjid and after making wudu I literally lifted my head and broke a light socket…

9. I crack very corny jokes. For real. So if you see a brother whose jokes are just so horrible that nobody laughs at them - and everyone stares at him, that’s probably me.
A close friend of mine also pointed out to me that I don’t really have much imagination when it comes to jokes as I tend to simply recycle other people’s jokes - yet, I’m able to pull it off better than they did, in his words I “perfect their jokes”..

10. I have changed my hairstyle many times. Yup. These days I like to grow my hair out a bit, so I had my hair a bit past my shoulders before, then I had to cut it, now its around my neck. I’ve had a bald head, crew cut, mushroom cut. I got my hair bleached once, it looked quite strange, especially since I was quite fat and had weird glasses at that time. Oh, i forgot, at one point I had a super-short crew cut with Drew Carey style glasses. Now that was funny, subhanallah. lol.

All in all, I’m very strange. Actually strange is not the correct word. You know that hadeeth there, tooba lil ghurabaa (glad tidings are to the strangers)? Well, honestly, I’m not ghareeb (strange), I’m just ‘ajeeb (weird).

Yeah. I was that kid in the sandbox making mud cakes and stuffing his pants full of sand. That was me. Yes. The same kid who would be eating worms…

As far as tagging anyone, then I really apologize but I don’t see anyone who hasn’t already been tagged. So I guess this is the end of the line… please forgive me if I forgot you.

I was scheduled to speak at the local university in the evening and wanted to get there early in order to get myself prepared, yet I was running late. As I hopped off my bus and into the subway station, I realized that the subway cars weren’t moving - the doors were all opened. I entered in one car and it was jam-packed: There was no place to move around, no place to sit, and people were squashed together like sardines. It seems the subway train had a malfunction and had been there for at least 15 minutes, making sure that this particular train was overflowing with people.

The train finally left, and I turned on my iPod listening to Bilal Philips’ Contemporary Issues and after a few minutes, I started getting all edgy - I didn’t get a seat. I was standing for perhaps 15-20 minutes and I was getting tired and unhappy.

It was only after leaving the subway that I thought to myself: “subhanallah, if 15 minutes is tiring you, then what about the Day of Judgment?” And truly, what can we say of a Day where we will be standing for 50,000 years. Fifty. Thousand. YEARS.

Allah says:

Do they not think that they will be called to account? On a Mighty Day, A Day when (all) mankind will stand before the Lord of the Worlds? [Mutaffifeen: 4-6]

Some are called as such because of their ‘founder’: Jahmiyyah for example, was derived from Jahm bin Safwan.

Others were from descriptions about the group, whether they’re famous or not: Khawaarij did Khurooj unto the Muslims for example.

One peculiar one is the Qadariyyah: they were the ones who used to deny the Qadr of Allah, believing that it was all their own free will completely - why then were they called the Qadariyyah? Isn’t that contradictory?

In fact, the Qadariyyah were called as such because they were the ‘Qaadir’ of their own actions ie they believed in absolute free will and that they were the ‘creators of their own actions’

Funnily enough, Abdullah ibn ‘Umar said about them that: “let them know that they are completely free from me and I am completely free from them. And if they were to spend as much as Uhud in charity it wouldn’t be accepted from them.”

You fill up your arithmetics quiz, answering each question as fast as you can: 4+4=8…4-4=0…4 x 4= 16…. 4÷4=1

Wiping a drop of sweat off of your forehead, you hand in the paper to your teacher, who immediately grades it: you get a big fat zero! How can it be? The teacher answers: “Don’t you know what those signs mean? Here, a “+” means a multiplication, a “-” means a division… and she goes on to re-interpret the different mathematical operations to another meaning which you didn’t learn.

Using a scientific method is using a set of universal principles and a set methodology in order to derive results. So one cannot progress in advanced algebra if 1+1 is not understood to be equal to 2.

The domain of Islamic Theology is no different in the sense that there are set principles and methodologies which must be adhered to, just as one can’t differ on the basics of mathematics, like the definition of an addition. Any science which does not have set principles to refer to is bound to dissolve, since its application will differ according to the one who defines the science in his own way.

Methodologies (manaahij) were imperative in the History of Islam in order to clearly establish the way of the People of the Sunnah, especially when the non-Arabs came to Islam. This is because of their ignorance in the Arabic language, whereas the people were able to derive the rulings on many of their situations through the knowledge they had of the Arabic language. For example, they were able to determine whether a specific act was mustahabb or wajib with their simple knowledge of Arabic, like the use of fi’l amr and other such techniques. And if they were unable to do so, then they asked the ‘ulemaa amongst themselves and amongst the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (sallallahu ‘aleyhi wa sallam).

As a side point, its not surprising that the first thing the colonizing powers did when they took over the Muslim world was abolish the use of the Arabic language, handicapping millions of Muslims and effectively pushing them away from their deen.

May Allah make us all from amongst those who speak, understand, read and write the beautiful Arabic language.