[IslamCity] Prophet's sayings:REMEMBRANCE OF ALLAH
REMEMBRANCE OF ALLAH
Abu Huraira (Allah be pleased with him) reported Allah s Messenger (peace be upon him) as saying that Allah, the Exalted and Glorious, thus stated: I am near to the thought of My servant as he thinks about Me, and I am with him as he remembers Me. And if he remembers Me in his heart, I also remember him in My Heart, and if he remembers Me in assembly I remember him in assembly, better than his (remembrance), and if he draws near Me by the span of a palm, I draw near him by the cubit, and if he draws near Me by the cubit I draw near him by the space (covered by) two hands. And if he walks towards Me, I rush towards him.
Sahih Muslim, Book 035, Number 6471
***
{Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.}
(Holy Quran-16:125)
{And who is better in speech than he who [says: My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness), and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: I am one of the Muslims.} (Holy Quran-41:33)
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels. [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim]
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all.
[Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah]
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[IslamCity] Fwd: ANOTHER CRITICAL LOOK...
Islamic truths By Mansoor Ijaz MANSOOR IJAZ is an American Muslim of Pakistani ancestry. February 18, 2006 ANOTHER WEEK, another Muslim country burns in rage over months-old Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in an unflattering light. On Friday it was Libya, and earlier in the week it was my father's homeland, Pakistan, where violent protests were scattered across the nation. Some Muslims have decided that burning cities in defense of a prophet's teachings, which none of them seem willing to practice, is preferable to participating in rational debate about the myths and realities of a religion whose worst enemies are increasingly its own adherents. This week's events should compel those of us who claim Islam as our system of philosophical guidance to ask hard questions of ourselves in order to revive the religion's essential foundation: justice, peaceful and tolerant coexistence, compassion, the search for knowledge and unwavering faith in the unity of God. I am an American by birth and a Muslim by faith. For many of my American friends, I am a voice of reason in a sea of Islamist darkness, while many Muslims have called me an Uncle Tom for ingratiating myself with the vested interests they seek to destroy through their violence. Mostly, though, I try not to ignore the harsh realities the followers of my religion are often unwilling to face. The first truth is that most Muslim ideologues are hypocrites. What has Osama bin Laden done for the victims of the 2004 tsunami or the shattered families who lost everything in the Pakistani earthquake last year? He did not build one school, offer one loaf of bread or pay for one vaccination. And yet he, not the devout Muslim doctors from California and Iowa who repair broken limbs and lives in the snowy peaks of Kashmir, speaks the loudest for what Muslims allegedly stand for. He has succeeded in presenting himself as the defender of Islam's poor, and the Western media has taken his jihadist message all the way to the bank. The hypocrisy only starts there. Muslims and Arabs have done pitifully little to help improve the capacity of the Palestinian people to be good neighbors to their Israeli brethren. Take the money spent by any Middle Eastern royal family at a London hotel or Geneva resort during one month and you could build enough schools and medical clinics to take care of 1,000 Palestinian children for a year. Yet rather than educate and feed Palestinian and Muslim children so they may learn to settle differences through dialogue and debate, instead of by throwing rocks and wearing bombs, the Muslim haves put on a few telethons to raise paltry sums for the have nots to alleviate the guilt over their palatial gilded cages. The second truth — one that the West needs to come to grips with — is that there is no such human persona as a moderate Muslim. You either believe in the oneness of God or you don't. You either believe in the teachings of his prophet or you don't. You either learn those teachings and apply them to the circumstances of life in the country you have chosen to live in, or you shouldn't live there. *** PLEASE RE-READ THAT PARAGRAPH ! -- GK * Haters of Islam use the simplicity and elegance of its black-and-white rigor for devious political advantage by classifying the Koran's religious edicts as the cult-like behavior of fanatics. The West would win a lot of hearts and minds if it only showed Islam as it really is — telling the story, for example, that the prophet Muhammad was one of the great commodity traders of all time because he based his dealings on uniquely Muslim values, or that the reason he had multiple wives was not for the sake of sex but to give proper homes to the children of women made widows during a time of war. The cartoon imbroglio offered Western media an opportunity to portray the prophet in his many dignified dimensions, not just the distorted ones; sadly, there were few takers. But to look at angry Islam's reaction on television each night forces the question of what might be possible if all the lost energy of thousands of rioting Muslims went into the villages of Aceh to rebuild lost homes or into Kashmir to construct schools. In fact, the most glaring truth is that Islam's mobsters fear the West has it right: that we have perfected the very system Islam's holy scriptures urged them to learn and practice. And having failed in their mission to lead their masses, they seek any excuse to demonize those of us in the West and to try to bring us down. They know they are losing the ideological struggle for hearts and minds, for life in all its different dimensions, and so they prepare themselves, and us, for Armageddon by starting fires everywhere in a display of Islamic unity intended to galvanize the masses they cannot feed, clothe, educate or house. This is not Islam. And the faster its truest believers stand up and demonstrate its values and principles by actions, not
[IslamCity] Abu Damdam, the man who forgave those who abused him
Peace be upon you,
Allah Almighty says in the Quran:
Those who repress their anger and pardon people. For Verily Allah
loves those who do good
[Suarh al Imran (3): 134]
Nawawi cites an opinion of Imam Shafi who once said that is a person
insults another then sincerely offers an apology, if the insulted
person does not accept the apology, then the insulted person is like a
devil (in that he refuses to accept the apology of the one who
insulted him).
Nawawi expanded on this opinion by citing a tradition from amongst the
honourable pre Islamic Arabs:
It was said to me: Such and such a person has spoken badly of you,
And when a youth goes out to humiliate someone, it is a shame,
So I said: he has come to us and issues an excuse,
The compensation for such a sin (insult), is an apology
Excuses, such as freedom of expression in launching an insult donot
stand the same ground as an apology for unjustly abusing the concept
of freedomof expression, and God knows best.
In any case, the example of Abu Damdam, one which we should all learmn
from, goes even one step further:
Anas said that once the Prophet exclaimed, Can't anyone of you be
like Abu Damdam? The Companions asked, Who is Abu Damdam, O
Messenger of Allah? He replied, When he gets up in the morning he
says, 'O Allah, I offer my honor and life to You?' So that he would
not abuse those who abused him, nor would he wrong those who wronged
him, or hit those who hit him.
[Fiqh us Sunnah, 4/115]
Abu Damdam was less concerned about whether he would recieve an
apology or not, more, he was concerned about how he would restrain
himself from actuing equally unjustly when someone would insult him,
or his faith. This higher road is exactly what we as Muslims need to
understand and adopt today, partcularly in light of issues such as
these inappropriate cartoons. Besides, how shameful of the Muslims to
become worked up over a cartoon when the real issues of persecution do
not generate anywhere near as much public support?
May Allah Almighty have mercy and guide us from knowing when to object
and how to object in a manner which reflects the beauty of Islam, and
not with the barbarity or misproportioned response we see today, ameen.
In the protection of God, with peace, f
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***
{Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom
(i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue
with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone
astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.}
(Holy Quran-16:125)
{And who is better in speech than he who [says: My Lord is Allah (believes in
His Oneness), and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites
(men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: I
am one of the Muslims.} (Holy Quran-41:33)
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: By Allah, if
Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of
camels. [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim]
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, Whoever
calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who
follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all.
[Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah]
--
All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in
any way reflect the official views of IslamCity unless sanctioned or approved
otherwise.
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[IslamCity] Inews Daily - 21/02/06
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful Inews Daily Tuesday 21st February 2006 - 22nd Muharram 1427 West may have to accept a nuclear Iran - El-BaradeiIAEA chief Mohammad El-Baradei said that the West might have no choice but to allow Iran to carry out small-scale uranium enrichment on its soil. El-Baradei suggested that Iran could be allowed to conduct limited uranium enrichment under certain conditions as a compromise to defuse its nuclear standoff with Western states. Iran resumed small-scale uranium enrichment earlier this month, after the International Atomic Energy Agency referred its nuclear dossier to the UN Security Council, which can impose sanctions. Irans Foreign Minister welcomed El-Baradeis proposal as a 'step forward'. Hamas dismisses Israeli sanctions Palestinian Prime Minister-designate Ismail Haniya has dismissed the effect of Israeli financial restrictions on the Palestinian Authority. Mr. Haniya said that Arab and Islamic states would offset a drop in Western aid and said Hamas would not disarm or recognise Israel. On Sunday, Israel approved a series of punitive measures against the Palestinians. The EU, the biggest donor to the Palestinian Authority, has threatened to stop funding unless Hamas recognises Israel and renounces violence. Iran leader urges Muslims to fund PalestiniansIrans supreme leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei yesterday called on Muslims worldwide to provide financial support to the Palestinians during his talks with the representatives of Hamas, state television reported. "We must make a plan so all Muslims will be able to supply the Palestinians with a yearly financial aid package," Khamenei told Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal. He lauded Hamas for not moderating its fierce resistance to Israel after its upset victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections last month. Pakistan bans poultry imports from India, Iran, FrancePakistan has banned all poultry imports from India, Iran and France after the countries reported cases of the H5N1 bird flu, officials said yesterday. Agriculture authorities have also set up quarantine facilities on a rail link between India and Pakistan, which reopened over the weekend after four decades. Indias first H5N1 bird flu outbreak was confirmed on Saturday in western Maharashtra state, where according to officials 50,000 birds died last week. Hundreds of thousands of birds were being destroyed Monday. New attacks in Iraq - 23 dead23 Iraqis were killed and scores more wounded in a slew of attacks across the country yesterday. In the days bloodiest attack, a suicide bomber killed 12 people on a mini-bus in a Shia neighbourhood in northern Baghdad. Rescue teams were combing the blackened vehicle to extract charred human remains. At least eight wounded were rushed to the hospital, he added. The attacker struck in Kadhamiyah, which has been regularly targeted by US funded extremists intent on fanning sectarian strife among Iraqs religious groups. Karbala governor suspends ties with USThe governor of the Iraqi city of Karbala said yesterday he had suspended ties with US forces because of excessive security measures employed by US troops during a visit to his offices. Governor Akil Al Khazali complained the soldiers behaviour was excessive and disrespected the governorship. "We have decided to suspend ties with the Americans," he added. The American delegation showed disrespect towards the Iraqi forces who were also present in the governors building and the US troops used sniffer dogs even to check the governors chair. Holocaust denier jailed while Danish blasphemer walks freeDavid Irving, the historian who questioned the holocaust, was last night starting a three-year prison sentence in Vienna. Irving went on trial for two speeches he delivered in the country almost 17 years ago. Ironically, the Danish cartoonist who sparked the anger of Muslims around the world by insulting Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) walks free and no charges have been brought against him. Kashmiris reject Indian talk offerKashmirs main alliance yesterday rejected an invitation by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to attend a conference to boost a peace process in the restive Himalayan region. The conference, scheduled for Saturday, has been called by New Delhi to widen the dialogue in Jammu and Kashmir where Muslims have revolted against Indian rule since 1989. Singh has called all the groups in the region for the peace conference but has not invited nuclear rival Pakistan with which New Delhi has a separate peace process. Turkmen ruler coins lasting memento for 66th birthday The president of Turkmenistan, described as a despot by the west, has celebrated his 66th birthday by creating a new set of gold and silver coins in honour of poetry he has written. Last year, to celebrate his 65th birthday, Saparmurat Niyazov issued coins featuring his family tree. This year, it
[IslamCity] Understanding Al-Islam And Muslims
LewisNews, which runs a website and a radio show from Washington State, has created a column on their website for articles, etc about Muslims titled "Understanding Al-Islam And Muslims". I have placed several speeches andarticles about Islamon that site. The link to the column is:http://www.lewisnews.com/section.asp?ID=107Name=%22Understanding%22+Al%2DIslam+%26+MuslimsThe invitation to put Islamic material on that column is an open one. If you havegood Islamic information to share that will help non-Muslims better understandMuslims and Islam, pleasepass them on to me.For the months of January and February thus far LewisNews has had more than
640,000 visitors to their site. Besides the column about Al-Islam, they have been doing a weekly 2 hour radio program with members fromthe American Muslimcommunity giving presentations and answering questions about common distortions of Al-Islam. LewisNews is listed as one of the top 100,000 websites in the world. You can also advertise this site as a place for non-Muslims to learn about Al-Islam.Please check the website out and please contribute whatevergreat articles, written speeches, etc that you may haveto this column. "Strive as in a race to achieve the goal of excellence in all that you do."For real insights visit:http://www.geocities.com/mewatch99/Regards,Nashid
***
{Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.}
(Holy Quran-16:125)
{And who is better in speech than he who [says: My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness), and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: I am one of the Muslims.} (Holy Quran-41:33)
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels. [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim]
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all.
[Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah]
--
All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in any way reflect the official views of IslamCity unless sanctioned or approved otherwise.
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[IslamCity] An All Call To Respond to History Illuminates the Rage of Muslims Article
Truly the Pen of Wisdom is mightier than the swords of Ignorance. An article published in the New York Times, as recently as today, in the Arts section is a good read. I am encouraging all to read this article and then "educate" the world, as well as the New York Times on History, Islamic Arts, Hadiths and Quoran. This article is a very slick effort to raise the images of the anti-Islamic, anti-Muslim, the slur the Prophet Muhammed (PBBUH) hype that has been abounding, only instead of showing the images , they show the images in their use of words.Secondly the title clevelry re-attibutes violenceto theMuslims and the Muslim world, while timidlyadmittingsaying yes,other religious groups did that too! But one can read and see that this is done to fuel anti-Islamic/Muslim sentiments.I write this to you as I am not that adept in this arena but I am making an allcall
for individuals in our community who are scholars in the Arts (Western, Islamic and Christian), History Islamic and Christian/Western, In the Quoran to give a very nice dialogue with the writer, as he asserts with a sense of flippancythat the (damage, slur), criticismwas done to an iconic image of a particularreligion,,thats all!On ward to preserving the shama-il-nama of the"Mercy that was sent to all the World." The article is in this link:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/20/arts/20conn.html?themc=thSincerely, Tal
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***
{Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.}
(Holy Quran-16:125)
{And who is better in speech than he who [says: My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness), and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: I am one of the Muslims.} (Holy Quran-41:33)
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels. [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim]
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all.
[Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah]
--
All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in any way reflect the official views of IslamCity unless sanctioned or approved otherwise.
If your mailbox clogged with mails from IslamCity, you may wish to get a daily digest of emails by logging-on to http://www.yahoogroups.com to change your mail delivery settings or email the moderators at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the title change to daily digest.
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[IslamCity] Re: Article: St. Louis Article on African-American / Immigrant Muslim Relations
[Print] [Close]Mosques are struggling By Tim Townsend ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Sunday, Feb. 19 2006 The African-American Muslim experience is a mystery to most Americans, black and white. When they think about African-American Islam at all, many people think immediately of Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. What they don't think much about are the thousands (some claim millions) of black Americans, most in inner cities, who practice the more mainstream, traditional Sunni Islam followed by nearly a billion people throughout the world.Islam has been a presence in the city for at least a century. Like many U.S. cities today, St. Louis presents several different faces of Islam - Bosnian, south Asian, Arab - and even within the African-American Muslim experience there have been many strains of Islam, some more faithful to its teachings than others.But black Muslims in the United States are struggling. According to the most recent national study of Muslim houses of prayer, done in 2000, African-American mosques are in more dire financial straits than their immigrant neighbors, with 71 percent saying they were having some financial problems, compared with 45 percent of south Asian (Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi) mosques and 43 percent of Arab mosques.And while many immigrant and African-American Muslims agree that they are all part of the umma - or world-wide community of Muslim believers - others say that ideal is unlike the reality, in which class and race divide the two communities.In a recent report for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, called "America's Other Muslims," Boston College political science professor Peter Skerry said the divide was, indeed, very real in today's America."Relations between African-American and immigrant Muslims are strained at worst, wary at best," he wrote. "Aside from differences of language, culture and national origin, tensions have long been fueled by class disparities. Immigrant Muslims tend to be university-educated and comfortably situated. . . . African-American Muslims are likely to be neither."Founded in 1957Masjid al-Mu'minun was founded as part of the Nation of Islam in 1957. For the next 20 years, St. Louis Temple No. 28, as it was called then, served as the Nation's St. Louis headquarters. In 1975, the Nation of Islam's leader, Elijah Muhammad died, and his son, W. Deen Mohammed, took over and radically changed the direction of his father's organization.The Nation was resurrected later by Farrakhan and others, but W. Deen Mohammed took many of his father's mosques and followers with him as he found his way back to mainstream Sunni Islam. St. Louis Temple No. 28 became Masjid al-Mu'minun under W. Deen Mohammed, and in 1988 it came under the local spiritual direction of Imam Samuel Ansari, now 57, a baker and partner in Hooper's Better Bakery on Shreve Avenue in north St. Louis.Like at Masjid al-Mu'minun, at most African-American mosques the imam is a volunteer who holds a regular job as well, according to "The Mosque in America: A National Portrait," a 2001 study sponsored by several Muslim organizations, part of a larger study of religious congregations by the Hartford Institute for Religious Research.Nearly two-thirds of mosques in the United States have one dominant ethnic group, and a quarter of those were African-American in 2000.Other, smaller African-American organizations associated with Islam have dotted St. Louis's landscape since the 1920s, according to Edward E. Curtis, religious studies professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.In "Islam in Black St. Louis," a 1997 article in "Gateway Heritage," the quarterly magazine for the Missouri Historical Society, Curtis wrote that black St. Louisans joined a number of groups with Islamic orientations, including the Ahmadiyyah, the Islamic Brotherhood, the Fahamme Temple of Islam and Culture, and the Nation of Islam.In the 1920s an Indian Muslim organization, the Ahmadiyyah, began converting African-Americans in inner-city St. Louis neighborhoods. In 1923 the movement appointed a black American, P. Nathaniel Johnson, as its local imam. "St. Louis was one of the few cities that had an African-American leading a multi-racial, multi-ethnic - whites, Syrians, Turks and blacks - congregation," Curtis said.Though the Ahmadiyyah movement at that time was traditionally Muslim, Curtis said, since then it has wandered from the mainstream.Imam Munir Ahmad, 80, a barber at Pyramid Barber Shop in north St. Louis, has been the spiritual leader of the Ahmadiyyah mosque for 50 years. He said that although many of the 200 members of his congregation are African-American, he still gets a diverse crowd with many south Asians. The group is planning to build a new mosque in the Walnut Park area next year.A similar Muslim strand in the African-American community is the Nation of Islam, founded in the 1930s in Detroit. W.D. Fard is given credit
[IslamCity] Plane Crashes Led Me to Islam
- Original Message - From: mokarram hossain To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006 3:38 AM Subject: [Dahuk]: Plane Crashes Led Me to Islam Plane Crashes Led Me to IslamAn American Woman Discovers Islam By Jennifer Fayed* Feb. 14, 2006 Jennifer Fayed There comes a time in your life when you are compelled to ask "Why am I here and what is my purpose in this life?" These were my thoughts during the summer of 2001. I had been married to my (first) husband for about 3 years. The marriage was going downhill. My husband had no ambitions in life, and with two children barely old enough to take care of themselves, I found out I was pregnant again. I started to ponder my purpose in this earth. Yes, I was a wife, a mother, and a daughter; however, the same thought, that there has to be a reason for my existence, would continually pass through my mind. My family had recently moved to the Dominican Republic and I felt abandoned. "Abandoned?" you might ask. "But you are married with children, how can you feel abandoned?" I was 21 years old and my parents were my inspiration for the person I was striving to become. They were my example. I was asleep one morning when I got a frantic call from my mother-in-law screaming that "there was a plane crash, a plane crash in downtown Manhattan." Confused, I said, "What, what are you talking about?" I turned on the television only to find out that the second tower of the World Trade Center had been hit by a second aircraft. I was shocked! Who could have done this, who was capable of such atrocity? I was in disbelief from what I saw on the news. "Was this real?" I kept asking myself. "It was must be a movie please, please tell me this was a movie." I had just been in the World Trade Center the day before. I saw this as some proof that it wasn't my time to die and I hadn't completed my purpose in this life. I didn't know what purpose, but it wasn't yet my time. There was chaos in New York City that day. Little did I know this day, among other events in my life, would only be the beginning of drastic changes that were about to happen. I emptied my sorrows onto a God, a God that I worshiped in my own way, not in the way I was taught to do. Soon after the attacks of September 11, I went to the Dominican Republic to visit my parents. I was about a month pregnant, and no soul, other than my mother-in-law, my husband, and I, knew about the pregnancy. How was I going to break the news to my parents? I had gotten pregnant with my first child out of wedlock and soon married to make things right. So here I was pregnant with my third baby, and I thought that I would at least be able to think things through while staying in the Caribbean. I left on American Airlines flight 587. This was the first time I was in an airplane after the attacks on the World Trade Center. The security in the airport was intense, and people in the airplane kept praying, some even kept at it for the whole flight. I started to laugh within myself. If we're going to die, well then it's our fate. I kept thinking about my pregnancy. I didn't want to be pregnant, it was unplanned. It would be tough having a third mouth to feed when I could barely support two children. I was so confused. I spent time with my family trying to tell them about the baby. I couldn't bear to tell them that their first-born daughter was yet again going to bring another major disappointment to them. Therefore, I decided that I would terminate the pregnancy and no one had to even know I was pregnant. Easy solution, I thought to myself. Except that I came from a strong Christian family and to even fathom having an abortion was a sin and taboo. After my quick trip to the Caribbean, I went back to New York and finally called Planned Parenthood to set up the appointment to terminate the pregnancy. I asked them if I could take the abortion pill, and I was devastated to find out that I would have to go through a full abortion because my window for the abortion pill was one week past the time to end the pregnancy with a pill. I was so depressed; I thought to myself, "Oh, my God, they're going to rip this baby out of my womb.
[IslamCity] The Scarf
From: Jamiah Suseno
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 4:05 AM
Subject: The Scarf
By: Nura Alia Hossainzadeh
They stand there with shorts, so short, excessively
short,shorts that so deceptively capture from them all they know of
modesty..and I proudly pull my scarf over my
hairThey stand there, face lost in a sea of make-up,make-up
that so ruthlessly captures from them all they know of freedom..and I proudly pull my scarf over my hairThey
stand there, hair raining with gels, colors -chemicals that so menacingly
capture from them all they know of purity..and I
proudly pull my scarf over my hairThey stand there, so close, so
very close to their "lover",devoted to them, the devotion that so
mercilessly captures from them all they know of individuality..and I proudly pull my scarf over my hairAnd they
stand there, talking of getting new shorts, new gelsand colors, new
boyfriends, materialistic thingsthat so wrongfully capture from them all
they know of God and love..and I proudly pull my
scarf over my hairFor my scarf is my protector, my lover, my
devotion,my pureness, my beauty, my rememberance of God,And I
proudly pull it over my hair knowing that when I wear it,I so rightfully
thrust away all the things that the devilbrought about,And when I
put it on,
I amFree...
***
{Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.}
(Holy Quran-16:125)
{And who is better in speech than he who [says: My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness), and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: I am one of the Muslims.} (Holy Quran-41:33)
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels. [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim]
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all.
[Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah]
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