Waqt Well Wasted

Why other mothers are not competition?

2011-03-01T22:18:00.000-08:00

It's been a while blog. I guess, i didn't have anything meaningful to add. But as of late, i feel the need to compile some early childhood links and such -- and since I'm too lazy to start a new blog, i will just start adding them here.

But first some thoughts on spiritual/educational stinginess. What is up with that? Too often, I've been asked by many a well-wishers the reason behind my frankness to share whatever the heck i might know at the moment. Why aren't i hoarding this information for myself and my children?? (This is not directed at any one person. No, Not you!)

As if i shared something that might be beneficial for someone else, somehow it will take something away from my child's future. Somehow, i will weaken my progeny's success rate and others will overtake them?!?! seriously?

Sadly, this kind of lazy and insecure competition is prevalent amongst people of knowledge. People who very well understand that all good and bad is from GOD and nothing we can do will take away from someones destiny. Yet, still there is that nagging insecurity that makes mothers act in strange ways.

I mean, logically, shouldn't sharing goodness and knowledge elevate you and yours? any act of goodness has got to impact you in some positive way? perhaps? (see ayas below)

whereas, hoarding information to yourself, denying people something of benefit (especially when you believe that every person around you is a source of trial and sent to you by God), and wishing them ill so you and your progeny can succeed cant be too conducive to your health. really

All of us know more than one of us. We are a source of rehma for each other. So why not share what we know, in the hope that our acts of kindness may bring some blessings for our families from up above. amen.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

So God gave them the reward of the life of this world and the best reward of the hereafter. God loves the good-doers. (3:148)

... There is good in the life of this world for those who do good, and the abode of the hereafter is even better. How wonderful is the abode of those who have fear of God. (16:30)

Disconnection is all the cause of all depression...

2010-04-25T00:28:00.000-07:00

I’ve had my ups and downs with staying home instead of following my career. I’ve gone through periods where I feel useless. As if I don’t serve any purpose. When I feel like that, I tend to get depressed. When im depressed I don’t feel like doing house/family related stuff. Soon the family suffers. Everyone waits for me to get back on track, and we resume the cycle.

But last year I spent some time reflecting on myself and discovered the following: Disconnection is the cause of all depression. My problems didn’t start when I quit my career; they started with when I stopped remembering. I stopped reflecting on the signs of Allah swt which made me forget my origin. I forgot that I’m part of something big, that everything is interconnected, and that im on my way to somewhere.

The problem with feeling sorry for yourself is that you become selfish. So self – absorbed that you ignore the infinite amount of blessings that surround you, and instead you focus only on negative perceptions being created to justify your laziness. And then you watch a movie like “slum dog millionaire” and wonder how patient God must be to put up with you.

I would’ve kicked me repeatedly --. (ehe, gulp)

Can i get a Thank You, Lord!

Much respect to men who let themselves be dominated ...

2010-01-15T10:08:00.000-08:00

The Prophet [saw] said that women totally dominate men of intellect and possessors of hearts. But ignorant men dominate women, for they are shackled by an animal ferocity. They have no kindness, gentleness or love, since animality dominates their nature. Love and kindness are human attributes; anger and sensuality belong to the animals. She is the radiance of God, she is not your beloved. She is a creator - you could say that she is not created.

- Jalal al-Din Rumi

2009-05-23T09:31:00.000-07:00

What is Spiritual Abuse?
Uzma Mazhar

Johnson & VanVonderen use the following 7 criteria to identify the abusive system. These criteria can be used in a wide range of systems, from families and groups to organizations, to see if they are abusive:

* Power-Posturing
* Performance Preoccupation
* Unspoken Rules
* Lack of Balance
* Paranoia
* Misplaced Loyalty
* Secretive

Spiritual (religious) abuse occurs when a leader uses his or her spiritual (religious) position to control or dominate another person.

Spiritual abuse occurs when shame is used in an attempt to get someone to support a belief, or…to fend off legitimate questions.

When your words and actions tear down another, or attack or weaken a person's standing to gratify you, your position or your beliefs, while at the same time weakening or harming another — that is spiritual abuse.

Power-posturing simply means that leaders spend a lot of time focused on their own authority and reminding others of it, as well. This is necessary because their spiritual authority isn’t real—based on genuine godly character—it is postured. Those who are in positions of true leadership demonstrate authority, spiritual power, and credibility by their lives and message.

There are spiritual systems in which the members are there to meet the needs of the leader. These leaders attempt to find fulfillment through the religious performance of the very people whom they are there to serve and build. It is spiritual abuse.

If obedience and service is flowing out of you as a result of your dependence on God alone, you won’t keep track of it with an eye toward reward, you’ll just do it. But if you’re preoccupied with whether you’ve done enough to please God, then you’re not looking at Him, you’re looking at your own works. And you’re also concerned about who else might be looking at you, evaluating you. Why would anyone keep track of their ‘godly’ behavior unless they were trying to earn spiritual points because of it?

It is dishonest — even dangerous — simply to receive and act upon a spiritual directive because you are ‘supposed to be submissive’, or because someone is ‘in authority’. In the end, God is the One before whom we must all stand, the One to whom we must answer.

Some of the unspoken rules that leaders use to exercise control are:

* Do not disagree with the authorities or your loyalty will be suspect.
* It is better to be nice than honest.
* If you speak about the problem out loud, you are the problem.

The truth is, when people talk about problems out loud, they don't cause them, they simply expose them. Rules like this remain unspoken, because examining them in the light of mature dialogue would instantly reveal how illogical, unhealthy and unethical they are. So silence becomes the fortress wall of protection, shielding the leader’s power position from scrutiny or challenge. The real problem, however, is that if a person who feels violated stops talking, then the perpetrator will never be held accountable for his behavior.

A characteristic of spiritually abusive systems is that a misplaced sense of loyalty is fostered and even demanded. We’re not talking about loyalty to God, but about loyalty to a given organization or leader.

A common way this is accomplished is by setting up a system where disloyalty to or disagreement with the leadership is construed as the same thing as disobeying God.

Questioning leaders is equal to questioning God. After all, the leader is the authority, and authority is always right. This causes people to misplace their loyalty in a leader or an organization.

There are three factors that come into play here, adding up to misplaced loyalty.

1. First, leadership projects a ‘we alone are right’ mentality, which permeates the system. Members must remain in the system if they want to be ‘safe,’ or to stay ‘on good terms’ with God, or not to be viewed as wrong or ‘strayed.’

2. The second factor that brings about misplaced loyalty is the use of ‘scare tactics.’ For example conveying the impression that:
God is going to withdraw His Spirit from you and your family.
God will destroy your business.
Without our protection, Satan will get your children.
You and your family will come under a curse.

3. The third method of calling forth misplaced loyalty is the threat of humiliation. This is done by publicly shaming, exposing, or threatening to remove people from the group.

In the abusive system, it is the fear of being exposed, humiliated or removed that insures your proper allegiance, and insulates those in authority. You can be ‘exposed’ for asking too many questions, for disobeying the unspoken rules, or for disagreeing with authority. People are made public examples in order to send a message to those who remain.

When you see people in a religious system being secretive —watch out. People don’t hide what is appropriate; they hide what is inappropriate.

One reason spiritually abusive families and *mosques* are secretive is because they are so image conscious. People in these systems can’t even live up to their own performance standards, so they have to hide what is real. Some believe they must do this in order to protect God’s good name. So how things look and what others think becomes more important than what’s real. They become God’s ‘public relations agents.’ The truth is, He’s not hiring anyone for this position!

Adapted and excerpts from:
"The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse" by David Johnson & Jeff VanVonderen
Spiritual Abuse

What is Humility?

2009-03-18T22:24:00.000-07:00

"Humility is to submit to the truth and be ever ready to be driven by it, even if you hear it from a child or the most ignorant."

"The height of humility is for you to lower, or debase yourself, in front of someone who is lower than you in 'ni'ma' (blessings) of this dunya, so that you show him that you have no virtue over him by what you were blessed with in this world. And to behave in dignity, to elevate yourself, above the one who is above you in the 'ni'ma' of this world, to show him that he has nothing over you of virtue of what you were deprived from... "

Dignity in Humility:"Being humble doesn't mean debasing yourself at the expense of your human dignity. It means, to have the clarity and the vision to understand your environment, and the presence and the keenness to be patient and silent, to evaluate such in order to be able to make a contribution that would be alluded to hikmah or wisdom, as opposed to anything that is its opposite..."

*paraphrased from Sheikh Abdallah Adhamis lecture series on the Shama`il of Imam Tirmithi.

link to audio

Supporting Early Math Skills Through Everyday Moments

2009-02-21T00:54:00.000-08:00

Supporting Early Math Skills Through Everyday Moments

Children are using early math skills throughout their daily routines and activities. This is good news as these skills are important for being ready for school. But early math doesn’t mean taking out the calculator during playtime. Even before they start school, most children develop an understanding of addition and subtraction through everyday interactions. For example, Thomas has two cars; Joseph wants one. After Thomas shares one, he sees that he has one car left (Bowman B. T. et al., 2001, p. 201). Other math skills are introduced through daily routines you share with your child—counting steps as you go up or down, for example. Informal activities like this one give children a jumpstart on the formal math instruction that starts in school.

What math knowledge will your child need later on in elementary school? Early mathematical concepts and skills that first-grade mathematics curriculum builds on include: (Bowman, B. T., Donovan, M. S., & Burns, M. S., (Eds.), 2001, 76).

# Understanding size, shape, and patterns

# Ability to count verbally (first forward, then backward)

# Recognizing numerals

# Identifying more and less of a quantity

# Understanding one-to-one correspondence (i.e., matching sets, or knowing which group has four and which has five)

Click below to skip to the topic of your choice:

Key Math Skills for School

How Math Skills Link to Other Areas of Development

What You Can Do

Key Math Skills for School

More advanced mathematical skills are based on an early math “foundation”—just like a house is built on a strong foundation. In the toddler years, you can help your child begin to develop early math skills by introducing ideas like: (From Diezmann & Yelland, 2000, and Fromboluti & Rinck, 1999.)

Number Sense: This is the ability to count accurately—first forward. Then, later in school, children will learn to count backwards. A more complex skill related to number sense is the ability to see relationships between numbers—like adding and subtracting.
Ben (age 2) saw the cupcakes on the plate. He counted with his dad: “One, two, three, four, five,
six…”

Representation: Making mathematical ideas “real” by using words, pictures, symbols and objects (like blocks).
Casey (aged 3) was setting out a pretend picnic. He carefully laid out four plastic plates and four plastic cups: “So our whole family can come to the picnic!” There were four members in his family; he was able to apply this information to the number of plates and cups he chose.

Spatial sense: Later in school, children will call this “geometry”. But for toddlers it is introducing the ideas of shape, size, space, position, direction and movement.
Aziz (28 months) was giggling at the bottom of the slide. “What’s so funny?” his Auntie wondered. “I comed up,” said Aziz, “Then I comed down!”

Measurement: Technically, this is finding the length, height, and weight of an object using units like inches, feet or pounds. Measurement of time (in minutes, for example) also falls under this skill area.
Gabriella (36 months) asked her Abuela again and again: “Make cookies? Me do it!” Her Abuela showed her how to fill the measuring cup with sugar. “We need two cups, Gabi. Fill it up once and put it in the bowl, then fill it up again.”

Estimation: This is the ability to make a good guess about the amount of size of something. This is very difficult for young children to do. You can help them by showing them the meaning of words like more, less, bigger, smaller, more than, less than.
Nolan (30 months) looked at the two bagels: one was a regular bagel, one was a mini-bagel. His dad asked: “Which one would you like?” Nolan pointed to the regular bagel. His dad said, “You must be hungry! That bagel is bigger. That bagel is smaller. Okay, I’ll give you the bigger one. Breakfast is coming up!”

Patterns: Patterns are things—numbers, shapes, images—that repeat in a logical way. Patterns help children learn to make predictions, to understand what comes next, to make logical connections, and to use reasoning skills.
Ava (27 months) pointed to the moon: “Moon. Sun go night-night.” Her grandfather picked her up, “Yes, little Ava. In the morning, the sun comes out and the moon goes away. At night, the sun goes to sleep and the moon comes out to play. But it’s time for Ava to go to sleep now, just like the sun.”

Problem-solving: The ability to think through a problem, to recognize there is more than one path to the answer. It means using past knowledge and logical thinking skills to find an answer.
Carl (aged 15 months) looked at the shape-sorter—a plastic drum with 3 holes in the top. The holes were in the shape of a triangle, a circle and a square. Carl looked at the chunky shapes on the floor. He picked up a triangle. He put it in his month, then banged it on the floor. He touched the edges with his fingers. Then he tried to stuff it in each of the holes of the new toy. Surprise! It fell inside the triangle hole! Carl reached for another block, a circular one this time… Back to Top

Math: One Part of the Whole

Math skills are just one part of a larger web of skills that children are developing in the early years—including language skills, physical skills, and social skills. Each of these skill areas is dependent on and influences the others.

Trina (aged 18 months) was stacking blocks. She had put two square blocks on top of one another, then a triangle block on top of that. She discovered that no more blocks would balance on top of the triangle-shaped block. She looked up at her dad and showed him the block she couldn’t get to stay on top, essentially telling him with her gesture, “Dad, I need help figuring this out.” Her father showed her that if she took the triangle block off and used a square one instead, she could stack more on top. She then added two more blocks to her tower before proudly showing her creation to her dad: “Dada, Ook! Ook!”

You can see in this ordinary interaction how all areas of Trina’s development are working together. Her physical ability allows her to manipulate the blocks and use her thinking skills to execute her plan to make a tower. She uses her language and social skills as she asks her father for help. Her effective communication allows Dad to respond and provide the helps she needs (further enhancing her social skills as she sees herself as important and a good communicator). This then further builds her thinking skills as she learns how to solve the problem of making the tower taller. Back to Top

What You Can Do

The tips below highlight ways that you can help your child learn early math skills by building on their natural curiosity and having fun together. (Note: Most of these tips are designed for older children—ages 2-3. Younger children can be exposed to stories and songs using repetition, rhymes and numbers.)

* Shape up. Play with shape-sorters. Talk with your child about each shape—count the sides, describe the colors. Make your own shapes by cutting large shapes out of colored construction paper. Ask your child to “hop on the circle” or “jump on the red shape.”

* Count and sort. Gather together a basket of small toys, shells, pebbles or buttons. Count them with your child. Sort them based on size, color, or what they do (i.e., all the cars in one pile, all the animals in another).

* Place the call. With your three year old, begin teaching her the address and phone number of your home. Talk with your child about how each house has a number, and how their house or apartment is one of a series, each with its own number.

* What size is it? Notice the sizes of objects in the world around you: That pink pocketbook is the biggest. The blue pocketbook is the smallest. Ask your child to think about his own size relative to other objects (“Do you fit under the table? Under the chair?”).

* You’re cookin’ now! Even young children can help fill, stir, and pour. Through these activities, children learn, quite naturally, to count, measure, add, and estimate.

* Walk it off. Taking a walk gives children many opportunities to compare (which stone is bigger?), assess (how many acorns did we find?), note similarities and differences (does the duck have fur like the bunny does?) and categorize (see if you can find some red leaves). You can also talk about size (by taking big and little steps), estimate distance (is the park close to our house or far away?), and practice counting (let's count how many steps until we get to the corner).

* Picture time. Use an hourglass, stopwatch, or timer to time short (1-3 minute) activities. This helps children develop a sense of time and to understand that some things take longer than others.

* Shape up. Point out the different shapes and colors you see during the day. On a walk, you may see a triangle-shaped sign that’s yellow. Inside a store you may see a rectangle-shaped sign that’s red.

* Read and sing your numbers. Sing songs that rhyme, repeat, or have numbers in them. Songs reinforce patterns (which is a math skill as well). They also are fun ways to practice language and foster social skills like cooperation.

* Start today. Use a calendar to talk about the date, the day of the week, and the weather. Calendars reinforce counting, sequences, and patterns. Build logical thinking skills by talking about cold weather and asking your child: What do we wear when it’s cold? This encourages your child to make the link between cold weather and warm clothing.

* Pass it around. Ask for your child’s help in distributing items like snacks or in laying napkins out on the dinner table. Help him give one cracker to each child. This helps children understand one-to-one correspondence. When you are distributing items, emphasize the number concept: “One for you, one for me, one for Daddy.” Or, “We are putting on our shoes: One, two.”

* Big on blocks. Give your child the chance to play with wooden blocks, plastic interlocking blocks, empty boxes, milk cartons, etc. Stacking and manipulating these toys help children learn about shapes and the relationships between shapes (e.g., two triangles make a square). Nesting boxes and cups for younger children help them understand the relationship between different sized objects.

* Tunnel time. Open a large cardboard box at each end to turn it into a tunnel. This helps children understand where their body is in space and in relation to other objects.

* The long and the short of it. Cut a few (3-5) pieces of ribbon, yarn or paper in different lengths. Talk about ideas like long and short. With your child, put in order of longest to shortest.

* Learn through touch. Cut shapes—circle, square, triangle—out of sturdy cardboard. Let your child touch the shape with her eyes open and then closed.

* Pattern play. Have fun with patterns by letting children arrange dry macaroni, chunky beads, different types of dry cereal, or pieces of paper in different patterns or designs. Supervise your child carefully during this activity to prevent choking, and put away all items when you are done.

* Laundry learning. Make household jobs fun. As you sort the laundry, ask your child to make a pile of shirts and a pile of socks. Ask him which pile is the bigger (estimation). Together, count how many shirts. See if he can make pairs of socks: Can you take two socks out and put them in their own pile? (Don’t worry if they don’t match! This activity is more about counting than matching.)

* Playground math. As your child plays, make comparisons based on height (high/low), position (over/under), or size (big/little).

* Dress for math success. Ask your child to pick out a shirt for the day. Ask: What color is your shirt? Yes, yellow. Can you find something in your room that is also yellow? As your child nears three and beyond, notice patterns in his clothing—like stripes, colors, shapes, or pictures: I see a pattern on your shirt. There are stripes that go red, blue, red, blue. Or, Your shirt is covered with ponies—a big pony next to a little pony, all over your shirt!

* Graphing games. As your child nears three and beyond, make a chart where your child can put a sticker each time it rains or each time it is sunny. At the end of a week, you can estimate together which column has more or less stickers, and count how many to be sure. Back to Top

References:

Bowman, B. T., Donovan, M. S., & Burns, M. S., (Eds.). (2001). Eager to learn: Educating our preschoolers. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences.

Diezmann, C., & Yelland, N. J. (2000). Developing mathematical literacy in the early childhood years. In Yelland, N. J. (Ed.), Promoting meaningful learning: Innovations in educating early childhood professionals. (pp.47-58). Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Fromboluti, C. S., & Rinck, N. (1999 June). Early childhood: Where learning begins.
U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement,
National Institute on Early Childhood Development and Education. Retrieved on September 22, 2008 from http://www.kidsource.com/education/math/whatis.html

0-3

Helping Young Children Channel Their Aggression

2009-02-21T00:52:00.000-08:00

Helping Young Children Channel Their Aggression

Ask any parent whether she wants her child to be an aggressive person and you are likely to get more than one answer. After all, aggression is associated with both approved and disapproved behavior in our minds and in our society—both with the energy and purpose that help us to actively master the challenges of life and with hurtful actions and destructive forces.

Most of us want our children to be able to take a stand for themselves when others treat them roughly. We hope that they will not start fights but if attacked will be able to cope with the attacker and not be overwhelmed. A child's learning to find a healthy balance between too much and too little aggressive behavior is probably the most difficult task of growing up.

According to developmental theory, aggressive impulses or drives are born in the human child and are a crucial aspect of the psychological life-force and of survival. In the course of healthy development, these drives are normally expressed in various behaviors at different ages and, with assistance from parents and others, are gradually brought under the control of the individual—moderated, channeled and regulated but by no means stamped out.

Aggression is Part of Healthy Development
During the first year, infants are not often thought of as behaving aggressively, and yet encounters in which an infant pushes, pulls, or exerts force against another are signs of the outwardly directed energy and assertiveness that reflect the healthy maturation of aggression. But the nine-month old who pulls your hair does not know that it might hurt—it is done in the same exuberant, playful spirit that is seen in other activities. It is only in the second year, when the child develops a better awareness of his separateness as a person—of "me" and "you"—that he can begin to understand that he is angry at someone and behave with intentional force. We do not usually talk about a child's being cruel or hostile toward others until some time during the second years. Even then, he does not know enough about cause and effect to understand the consequences of his action or how to regulate this behavior toward others. When your fifteen-month-old smashes a fragile object, he is caught up in the pleasure of assertiveness, not anticipating its result.

Parents sometimes tell me about their toddler who "knows better" than to hit or bite. They believe this is so because when he is scolded, he looks ashamed. What the toddler understands is not that he has hurt someone or destroyed something but that he has earned the disapproval of his parents. Conversely, when praised for being gentle with another, he knows and is pleased that he is approved of for that behavior at that moment. It will take time and many reminders before he can understand that not hitting or biting applies to many situations. Young children, particularly those under three and a half or so, scarcely know their own strength. The differences between a kiss and a bite, between patting and hitting, between nudging and pushing someone down are not automatically understood and children need many reminders: e.g., "Let me show you how to pat the baby (or the family dog or Daddy's cheek)"; "Patting feels nice. Hitting can hurt"; or "Do it softly (or gently), like this."

Learning "What to Expect" at Different Ages and Stages
As is true of the young child's development in other areas, there are steps and phases in the socialization of aggression, and it is worth your while to learn something about what kind of behavior to expect at various ages. If you understand what an infant or toddler or a four-year-old is capable of you can adjust your own actions and teaching to realistic expectations and save yourself worry and frustration. You don't need the anxiety of imagining that your toddler who gets very angry and has very little control over his aggression when frustrated or upset is destined to become an angry, destructive, uncontrolled four-or ten-or twenty-year-old. On the other hand, if your four-year-old has frequent aggressive outbursts and seems not to be concerned about the effect of his aggression, or even seems to enjoy hurting others, you are correct in being worried and in seeking ways to help him toward healthier behavior.

Parenting Strategies for Managing Aggression in Very Young Children
How then do parents moderate and channel their child's aggression without stamping it out by being too severe? While there is no exact recipe, here are twelve suggestions that may help you to provide your child with the guidance he needs.

1. Limits are part of loving. Keep in mind that your child's feeling loved and affectionately cared for builds the foundation for his acceptance of the guidance you will provide as he grows. Children who feel loved want to please their parents most of the time and will respond to their guidance. Putting reasonable restrictions on your child's behavior is part of loving him, just as are feeding, comforting, playing and responding to his wishes.

2. Try to figure out what triggered your child's aggressive behavior. Ask yourself what might have happened that set him off—your behavior or that of another person, or something else in the situation; perhaps he is overtired or not feeling well physically. Being rushed, abruptly handled, being denied something he wants, even being unable to do something he has tried to do with a toy or physical activity often produces feelings of frustration and anger that result in aggressive behavior.

3. Use what you know. Make use of what you know about your child's temperament, rhythms, preferences, and sensitivities. For example, if you know that he is irritable or ill-humored for the first hour of the day or gets very out of sorts when tired or hungry, you won't pick that time to ask a great deal in the way of control.

4. Be clear. Tell your child what you want him to do or not do in a specific situation (but try not to give a long lecture). Your child will be aware of your displeasure from your tone of voice as well as from what you say. It is important that you try to be clear about your disapproval. However, long lectures and dire predictions are usually counterproductive. Telling a three-year-old child that she can't have any television for two weeks if she hits her baby brother may upset her, but it is unlikely to help her understand and develop her own controls. A better reason is that you don't want her to hit him because it hurts. That you don't like the behavior is your most effective message. It helps any young child who has earned the disapproval of a parent to be reminded that she is loved even when you don't like the behavior.

5. Be a careful observer. When your young child is playing with other children, keep an eye on the situation but try not to hover. What begins as playful scuffling or run and chase or sharing toys can quickly move into a battle between children, and they may need a referee. However, there are times when you can let young children work things out among themselves. Age makes a difference, of course.

6. Use redirection. When your child is being aggressive in ways you don't like, stop the behavior and give him something else to do. You may either suggest and help start a new activity or perhaps guide him to a place where he can discharge aggressive feelings without doing harm to himself, to anyone else, to toys, or to the family pet. For example, a corner in which there is something to punch or bang or throw at can be utilized. You can say, for example, "If you feel like hitting, go and hit your pillow (or punching bag), but you can't hit the dog (or bang the table with a hammer)." Such an opportunity not only helps the child discharge some aggressive feelings but also helps him understand that there can be a time and place provided for such actions.

7. Be a coach. When time permits, demonstrate how to handle a situation in which there is conflict between children. For instance, if your child is old enough, you can teach him a few words to use in order to avoid or settle a conflict. A two-year-old can be helped to hold on to a toy and say "no" or "mine" instead of always pushing or crying when another child tries to take a toy. Children need specific suggestions and demonstrations from adults in order to learn that there are effective ways to handle disagreements that are more acceptable than physical attack and retaliation.

8. Use language. If your child has language skills, help him explain what he is angry about. If you are able to guess and he cannot say, do it for him, e.g., "I guess you're mad because you can't go to play with Johnny. I know how you feel, but it's too late to go today" (or whatever the reason is).

9. Ask yourself if you are sending "mixed messages" to your child about his aggressiveness. If you say "Don't hit" or "Be nice" while you are not so secretly enjoying your child's aggressive behavior toward someone else, he will be confused, and such confusions tend to make it more difficult to develop self-control.

10. Be a role model. Keep in mind that parents are the most important models for behavior and how to use aggression in a healthy way. If social exchanges in your family include much arguing or physical fighting in the presence or hearing of your children, you can count on their picking it up. Home environments like these can be unsafe and unhealthy for everyone in the family. If you are coping with a violent partner, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or 1-800-787-3244 (TTY) for support, shelter, or services, or visit Stop Family Violence for more information on getting the support and help you need.

11. Avoid spanking. Think about the very real disadvantages of physical punishment for your child. Children often arouse anger in adults when they provoke, tease, behave stubbornly, or attack others. If your practice is to hit or physically punish your child in some other way for such behavior, you need to think very carefully about what he learns from that.

12. Be patient; learning takes time. Your child's learning to love and live in reasonable harmony with others comes about only gradually and over many years. For you as parents there will always be ups and downs, periods when you despair of "civilizing" your child or when you will worry that he will be too timid for the rigors of the world. While living from day to day with the pleasures and frustrations of being a parent, it is also important to keep the long view in mind: there is a positive momentum to development. This forward thrust of your child's growth and development actually works in favor of his acquiring the ability to channel and productively use those aggressive energies that are a vital part of our makeup.

Sally Provence, M.D.

0-3

Choosing Toys for Toddlers

2009-02-21T00:44:00.000-08:00

"Toddlers are little explorers who learn by doing. Play gives your child a great opportunity to develop and practice new skills at her own pace by following her unique interests. The toys and playthings your child has available to her can shape her development in important ways.

While it may seem like choosing toys for toddlers should be easy, as you walk into a toy store today, the only thing that’s easy is feeling overwhelmed. There is a huge array of toys that have been developed for the toddler market. How do you choose which are right for your child? How can you tell which are high quality and which will last? Which will engage your child’s interest for more than a few days or weeks? Below are some ideas for choosing toys that will grow with your child, challenge her, and nurture her overall development (her thinking, physical, language and social-emotional skills).

Guidelines for Choosing Toys for Toddlers

* Choose toys that can be used in a variety of ways. Toddlers love to take apart, put back together, pull out, put in, add on, and build up. Choose toys that are “open-ended” in the sense that your child can play many different games with them. For example, wooden blocks or chunky plastic interlocking blocks can be used to make a road, a zoo, a bridge or a spaceship. Toys like this spark your child’s imagination and help him develop problem-solving and logical thinking skills.

Examples: Blocks, interlocking blocks, nesting blocks or cups, and toys for sand and water play

* Look for toys that will grow with your child. We all have had the experience of buying a toy that our child plays with for two days and never touches again. You can guard against that by looking for toys that can be fun at different developmental stages. For example, small plastic animals are fun for a young toddler who may make a shoebox house for them, while an older toddler can use them to act out a story she makes up.

Examples: Plastic toy animals and action figures, toddler-friendly dollhouses, trains and dump trucks (and other vehicles), stuffed animals and dolls

* Select toys that encourage exploration and problem-solving. Play gives children the chance to practice new skills over and over again. Toys that give kids a chance to figure something out on their own—or with a little coaching—build their logical thinking skills and help them become persistent problem-solvers. They also help children develop spatial relations skills (understanding how things fit together), hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills (using the small muscles in the hands and fingers).

Examples: Puzzles, shape-sorters, blocks, nesting blocks or cups, art materials like clay, paint, crayons or play-dough

* Look for toys that spark your child’s imagination. During your child’s third year, her creativity is really taking off as she is now able to take on the role of someone else (like a king) and imagine that something (like a block) is actually something else (like a piece of cake). Look for toys that your child can use as he develops and acts out stories. Pretend play builds language and literacy skills, problem-solving skills, and the ability to sequence (put events in a logical order).

Examples: Dress-up clothing, blocks, toy food and plastic plates, action figures, stuffed animals and dolls, trains and trucks, toddler-friendly dollhouses, toy tools, and “real-life” accessories such as a wrapping paper tube “fire hose” for your little fire fighter. The all-purpose large cardboard box is always a big hit for toddlers and is free. (Call an appliance store about picking up one of their refrigerator boxes). Boxes become houses, pirate ships, barns, tunnels—anything your child’s imagination can come up with!

* Give your child the chance to play with “real” stuff—or toys that look like the real thing. Your toddler is getting good at figuring out how objects in her world work—like television remotes or light switches. She is also interested in playing with your “real” stuff, like your cell phone, because she is eager to be big and capable like you. Toys like this help children problem-solve, learn spatial relations (how things fit together), and develop fine motor skills (use of the small muscles in the hands and fingers).

Examples: Plastic dishes and food, toy keys, toy phone, dress-up clothes, musical instruments, child-size brooms, mops, brushes and dustpans

* Toss in some “getting ready to read” toys. Books, magnetic alphabet letters, and art supplies like markers, crayons, and fingerpaints help your child develop early writing and reading skills. “Real-life” props like take-out menus, catalogs or magazines are fun for your child to look at and play with and also build her familiarity with letters, text, and print.

* Seek out toys that encourage your child to be active. Toddlers are doing all kinds of physical tricks as they are stronger and more confident with their bodies. Your job is to be an appreciative audience for your little one’s newest playground achievement! Look for toys that help your child practice current physical skills and develop new ones.

Examples: Balls of different shapes and sizes, tricycles or three-wheeled scooters (with appropriate protective gear), plastic bowling sets, child-size basketball hoop, pull-toys (e.g., toys that your child can pull on a string), wagon to fill and pull, gardening tools to dig and rake with, moving boxes (open at both ends) to make tunnels to crawl through

* Look for toys that nurture cross-generational play. While adults and children can play almost anything together, there are some toys that are designed for adult participation. As your child approaches age 3 and beyond, early board games—that involve using one’s memory or simple board games that do not require reading—are fun for all ages to play. Consider starting a “family game night” when all of you play together. Board games encourage counting, matching and memory skills, as well as listening skills and self-control (as children learn to follow the rules). They also nurture language and relationship-building skills. Another important benefit is teaching children to be gracious winners and how to cope with losing."

Common Questions on Choosing Toys for Toddlers

What are the benefits of sounds, lights and music?
Many, many toys for toddlers are ablaze with buttons, levers, lights, music, etc. Often these toys are marketed as “developmental” because the toy has so many different functions. Unfortunately, this often has the opposite effect for the child. The more a toy does, the less your child has to do. If your child can sit and watch the toy “perform”, then it is likely more entertaining than educational. In addition, these toys can be confusing to a child who is learning cause-and-effect. If a toy randomly starts playing music, or it is unclear which button made the lights start flashing, then your child is not learning which of his actions (the cause) produced the lights and music (the effect). In short, the most useful toys are those that require the most action on the part of a young child. The more children have to use their minds and bodies to make something work, the more they learn.

Can toys actually “make my baby smarter”, as the packaging and advertisements often claim?
Proceed with caution. Most products that make these claims have not been proven to increase children’s intelligence. In fact, safe household items (plastic bowls for filling and dumping, pillows for climbing and piling up to make a cave, old clothing for dress-up) are often the best learning tools. Remember, the more your child has to use his mind and body to problem solve and develop his own ideas, the more he learns.

0-3

Learning in the Age of Television

2009-02-17T01:35:00.000-08:00

Learning in the Age of Television
By Neil Postman

There could not have been a safer bet when it began in 1969 than that "Sesame Street" would be embraced by children, parents, and educators. Children loved it because they were raised on television commercials, which they intuitively knew were the most carefully crafted entertainments on television. To those who had not yet been to school, even to those who had just started, the idea of being taught by a series of commercials did not seem peculiar. And that television should entertain them was taken as a matter of course.
Parents embraced "Sesame Street" for several reasons, among them that it assuaged their guilt over the fact that they could not or would not restrict their children's access to television. "Sesame Street" appeared to justify allowing a 4- or 5-year-old to sit transfixed in front of a television screen for unnatural periods of time. Parents were eager to hope that television could teach their children something other than which breakfast cereal has the most crackle. At the same time, "Sesame Street" relieved them of the responsibility of teaching their preschool children how to read--no small matter in a culture where children are apt to be considered a nuisance.
They could also plainly see that in spite of its faults, "Sesame Street" was entirely consonant with the prevailing spirit of America. Its use of cute puppets, celebrities, catchy tunes, and rapid-fire editing was certain to give pleasure to the children and would therefore serve as adequate preparation for their entry into a fun-loving culture.
As for educators, they generally approved of "Sesame Street," too. Contrary to common opinion, they are apt to find new methods congenial, especially if they are told that education can be accomplished more efficiently by means of the new techniques. (That is why such ideas as "teacher-proof" textbooks, standardized tests, and, now, microcomputers have been welcomed into the classroom.) "Sesame Street" appeared to be an imaginative aid in solving the growing problem of teaching Americans how to read, while, at the same time, encouraging children to love school. We now know that "Sesame Street" encourages children to love school only if school is like "Sesame Street." Which is to say, we now know that "Sesame Street" undermines what the traditional idea of schooling represents.
Whereas a classroom is a place of social interaction, the space in front of a television set is a private preserve. Whereas in a classroom, one may ask a teacher questions, one can ask nothing of a television screen. Whereas school is centered on the development of language, television demands attention to images. Whereas attending school is a legal requirement, watching television is an act of choice. Whereas in school, one fails to attend to the teacher at the risk of punishment, no penalties exist for failing to attend to the television screen. Whereas to behave oneself in school means to observe rules of public decorum, television watching requires no such observances, has no concept of public decorum. Whereas in a classroom, fun is never more than a means to an end, on television it is the end in itself.
Yet "Sesame Street" and its progeny, "The Electric Company," are not to be blamed for laughing the traditional classroom out of existence. If the classroom now begins to seem a stale and flat environment for learning, the inventors of television itself are to blame, not the Children's Television Workshop. We can hardly expect those who want to make good television shows to concern themselves with what the classroom is for. They are concerned with what television is for.
This does not mean that "Sesame Street" is not educational. It is, in fact, nothing but educational--in the sense that every television show is educational. Just as reading a book--any kind of book--promotes a particular orientation toward learning, watching a television show does the same. "The Little House on the Prairie," "Cheers," and "The Tonight Show" are as effective as "Sesame Street" in promoting what might be called the television style of learning. And this style of learning is, by its nature, hostile to what has been called book learning or its handmaiden, school learning.
If we are to blame "Sesame Street" for anything, it is for the pretense that it is an ally of the classroom. That, after all, has been its chief claim on foundation and public money. As a television show, and a good one, "Sesame Street" does not encourage children to love school or anything about school. It encourages them to love television.
Moreover, it is important to add that whether or not "Sesame Street'' teaches children their letters and numbers is entirely irrelevant. We may take as our guide here John Dewey's observation that the content of a lesson is the least important thing about learning. As he wrote in Experience and Education: "Perhaps the greatest of all pedagogical fallacies is the notion that a person learns only what he is studying at the time. Collateral learning in the way of formation of enduring
attitudes ... may be and often is more important than the spelling lesson or lesson in geography or history. ... For these attitudes are fundamentally what count in the future." In other words, the most important thing one learns is always something about how one learns. As Dewey wrote in another place, we learn what we do.
Television educates by teaching children to do what television viewing requires of them. And that is as precisely remote from what a classroom requires of them as reading a book is from watching a stage show.
Although one would not know it from consulting various recent proposals on how to mend the educational system, this point--that reading books and watching television differ entirely in what they imply about learning--is the primary educational issue in America today. America is, in fact, the leading case in point of what may be thought of as the third great crisis in Western education. The first occurred in the 5th century B.C., when Athens underwent a change from an oral culture to an alphabet-writing culture. To understand what this meant, we must read Plato. The second occurred in the 16th century, when Europe underwent a radical transformation as a result of the printing press. To understand what this meant, we must read John Locke. The third is happening now, in America, as a result of the electronic revolution, particularly the invention of television. To understand what this means, we must read Marshall McLuhan.
We face the rapid dissolution of the assumptions of an education organized around the slow-moving printed word, and the equally rapid emergence of a new education based on the speed-of-light electronic image. The classroom is, at the moment, still tied to the printed word, although that connection is rapidly weakening. Meanwhile, television forges ahead, making no concessions to its great technological predecessor, creating new conceptions of knowledge and how it is acquired. One is entirely justified in saying that the major educational enterprise now being undertaken in the United States is not happening in its classrooms but in the home, in front of the television set, and under the jurisdiction not of school administrators and teachers but of network executives and entertainers.
I don't mean to imply that the situation is a result of a conspiracy or even that those who control television want this responsibility. I mean only to say that, like the alphabet or the printing press, television has by its power to control the time, attention, and cognitive habits of our youth gained the power to control their education. This is why I think it accurate to call television a curriculum. As I understand the word, a curriculum is a specially constructed information system whose purpose is to influence, teach,
train, or cultivate the mind and character of youth. Television, of course, does exactly that, and does it relentlessly. In so doing, it competes successfully with the school curriculum. By which I mean, it damn near obliterates it. Television's principal contribution to educational philosophy is the idea that teaching and entertainment are inseparable. This entirely original conception is to be found nowhere in educational discourse, from Confucius to Plato to Cicero to Locke to John Dewey. In searching the literature of education, you will find it said by some that children will learn best when they are interested in what they are learning. You will find it said--Plato and Dewey emphasized this--that reason is best cultivated when it is rooted in robust emotional ground. You will even find some who say that learning is best facilitated by a loving and benign teacher. But no one has ever said or implied that significant learning is effectively, durably, and truthfully achieved when education is entertainment.
Education philosophers have assumed that becoming acculturated is difficult because it necessarily involves the imposition of restraints. They have argued that there must be a sequence to learning, that perseverance and a certain measure of perspiration are indispensable, that individual pleasures must frequently be submerged in the interests of group cohesion, and that learning to be critical and learning to think conceptually and rigorously do not come easily to the young but are hard-fought victories. Indeed, Cicero remarked that the purpose of education is to free the student from the tyranny of the present, which cannot be pleasurable for those, like the young, who are struggling hard to do the opposite--that is, accommodate themselves to the present.
Television offers a delicious and original alternative to all of this. We might say there are three commandments that form the philosophy of the education which television offers. The influence of these commandments is observable in every type of television programming--from "Sesame Street" to the documentaries of "Nova" and "The National Geographic" to "Fantasy Island" to mtv The commandments are as follows: Thou shalt have no prerequisites. Every television program must be a complete package in itself. No previous knowledge is to be required. There must not be even a hint that learning is hierarchical, that it is an edifice constructed on a foundation. The learner must be allowed to enter at any point without prejudice. This is why you shall never hear or see a television program begin with the caution that if the viewer has not seen the previous programs, this one will be meaningless.

Television is a nongraded curriculum and excludes no viewer for any reason, at any time. In other words, in doing away with the idea of sequence and continuity in education, television undermines the idea that sequence and continuity have anything to do with thought itself. Thou shalt induce no perplexity.
In television teaching, perplexity is a superhighway to low ratings. A perplexed learner is a learner who will turn to another station. This means that there must be nothing that has to be remembered, studied, applied, or, worst of all, endured. It is assumed that any information, story, or idea can be made immediately accessible, since the contentment, not the growth, of the learner is paramount. Thou shalt avoid exposition like the 10 plagues visited upon Egypt.
Of all the enemies of television teaching, including continuity and perplexity, none is more formidable than exposition. Arguments, hypotheses, discussions, reasons, refutations, or any of the traditional instruments of reasoned discourse turn television into radio or, worse, third-rate printed matter. Thus, television teaching always takes the form of storytelling, conducted through dynamic images and supported by music. This is as characteristic of "Star Trek" as it is of "Cosmos," of "Diff'rent Strokes" as of "Sesame Street," of commercials as of "Nova." Nothing will be taught on television that cannot be both visualized and placed in a theatrical context.
The name we may properly give to an education without prerequisites, perplexity, and exposition is entertainment. And when one considers that save for sleeping there is no activity that occupies more of an American youth's time than television viewing, we cannot avoid the conclusion that a massive reorientation toward learning is now taking place.

PdF file

Neil Postman, professor of communication arts and sciences at New York University, is the author of Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, Teaching as a Subversive Activity, The Disappearance of Childhood, and other books.

Pavlovian Paradise?

2009-02-15T03:57:00.000-08:00

I wonder if its because of living under authoritative governments (dictatorships,oligarchy, etc.) that most immigrants feel the need to impose an 'authoritative' Islam in their communities? (That's all we know baby and we're sticking to it.) We don't understand the concept of an 'opposition party,' nor care about respecting opposing views. There's no room for that in our black and white world. All we want is someone to tell us what to do, so we can tell someone weaker what to do, because that's how it was done back home.

I just want to know...

2009-02-11T01:24:00.000-08:00

I’m a huge 'Lost' fan. Really, I stay up for hours, after putting my household to bed, researching theories and reviewing old episodes. Last night at about 2:30 in the morning I kind of wondered what the hell is wrong with me. Why can’t I just be content with what’s plain and obvious? Why am I obsessed with solving mysteries, finding clues, trying to understand the big picture? What is it about time travel, worm holes, and negative energy that can’t wait until the next day? Why am I so intrigued with the unexplained correlations that exist between the characters?

Well, duh, maybe because it’s the story of my life?

I’m a lost spirit (definitely not from this world) who travels to distance places in her sleep each night. The morning after I don’t remember a thing, I don’t even know what I look like while I’m... erm, traveling. I’m on this island, situated in some remote part of the galaxy, trying to link all the subtle clues [of my existence?] in order to find my ultimate answer. My ultimate destination...

Life is mysterious. (stranger than fiction really). It is full of wonders and excitement. (if you take the time to observe). But most of all it reminds us that we’re all meant to be something magnificent. (We’re destined for greatness). We just don’t know it yet.

Some of us just don’t know what our purpose is just yet; maybe that’s why we struggle. We struggle with mediocrity but hope for something more. We search the universe for clues but always return to the self for self-assurance. Ultimately, the answers lie beneath the surface, within our very heart, that carries some of the secrets of the unseen; probably the only object that can truly understand the true purpose of being.

so if i repair my heart, i will know the ending of 'Lost?' Huh? Oh look, it's 2:30 am again. Wee!

Neil Postman

2009-01-25T02:37:00.000-08:00

"Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see."

"Television is altering the meaning of "being informed" by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation. Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information - misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information - information that creates the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact leads one away from knowing."

Neil Postman

Mysticism in Islam

2009-01-23T22:50:00.000-08:00

Mysticism in Islam
William C. Chittick

"It is worth noting that modern-day "Islamism"—that is, ideological posturing and political activism in the name of Islam —agrees with the early Orientalists on the origins of Islamic mysticism. Despite the fact that the Islamists are harshly critical of Western scholarship, they adopt many of its positions. They love Western technological expertise along with its guns and bombs, and they also love the various political theories that justify totalitarian control. By claiming that mysticism derives from outside sources, they embrace the Orientalist myth of a harsh and sterile Islam and ignore the spiritual and intellectual heritage of their religion. They have focused all their efforts on turning people away from the Islamic tradition and establishing authoritarian regimes."

It's been a long time...

2009-01-23T22:24:00.000-08:00

Wow, time flies. Mostly, it drags but sometimes it flies. I feel like my brain stopped working for a while. But I am back.

Wisdom

2008-03-25T01:26:00.001-07:00

"We live in a world bound by these four essential Divine Attributes. We come from God; we return to God; God resides inwardly at the centre of our being; and the world itself is nothing but levels of Divine Presence which, however, is not perceivable as such save with the eye of inwardness. Happy is the person who before he is forced to open his eyes at the moment of death realizes this truth while in this life and with full possession of the gift of free will. Such a person will not but seek to serve, to love and to know God and through the realization thus gained be a true light to the world of service to both human beings and God’s other creatures, lover of the good and the beautiful and of all of God’s creation and locus of that unitive and illuminative knowledge of God which is the ultimate purpose of creation and the fountainhead of all wisdom."

GOD: THE REALITY TO SERVE,
LOVE AND KNOW
Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Dua

2008-03-25T01:19:00.000-07:00

My Lord,
Let my breast have a heart that is aware;
Give me an eye that will see, in the wine,
The intoxicating power of the wine.
This bondsman, who never lived by others' breath,
Give him a sigh that is native to him,
A sigh that is like dawn.
I am a flood, do not make me writhe in a shallow stream;
Give me, for playground, mountains and valleys.
If You would pit me against the boundless sea,
Give me, along with the restlessness of the wave,
The calm of the pearl.
You have set my eagle to hunt leopards;
Give him high resolve, and claws that are sharper.
I have set out to hunt the birds of the Sanctuary;
Give me an arrow that will hit the mark unshot.
I am but dust, set me afire with the light of David's song;
Give, to every particle of my being, wings of sparks.

IQBAL
Kulliyyāt-i Iqbāl-Fārsī (Lahore: Iqbal Academy Pakistan, 1990), p. 354.

Can the Islamic Intellectual Heritage be Recovered?

2008-03-25T01:10:00.001-07:00

Can the Islamic Intellectual Heritage be Recovered?
William C. Chittick

By "the Islamic intellectual heritage" I mean the ways of thinking about God, the world, and the human being established by the Qur’«n and the Prophet and elaborated upon by generations of practicing Muslims. I use the term "intellectual" to translate the word ‘aqlâ, and by it I want to distinguish this heritage from another, closely related heritage that also has theoretical and intellectual dimensions. This second heritage is the "transmitted" (naqlâ ) heritage.

Transmitted knowledge is learned by "imitation" (taqlâd), that is, by following the authority of those who possess it. This sort of knowledge includes Qur’«n recitation, Hadith, Arabic grammar, and jurisprudence. It is impossible to be a Muslim without taqlâd, because one cannot discover the Qur’«n or the practices of the Shariah by oneself. Just as language is learned by imitation, so also the Qur’«n and Islamic practice are learned by imitating those who know them. Those who have assumed the responsibility of preserving this transmitted heritage are known as its "knowers," that is, its ulama.

In transmitted knowledge, it is not proper to ask "why." If one does ask why, the answer is that the Qur’«n says what it says, or that grammar determines the rules of proper speech. In contrast, the only way to learn intellectual knowledge is to understand it. One cannot learn it by accepting it on the basis of authority. Intellectual knowledge includes mathematics, logic, philosophy, and much of theology. In learning, "why" is the most basic and important of questions. If one does not understand why, then one will be following someone else’s authority. It makes no sense to accept that 2 + 2 = 4 on the basis of a report, no matter how trust worthy the source may be. Either you understand it, or you do not. The goal here is not taqlâd, but taÁqâq, which can be translated as "verification" or "realization."

In the transmitted sciences, people must follows mujtahids, whether the mujtahids be alive (as in Shi’ism) or dead (as in Sunnism). In other words, one follows a mujtahid because the only way to learn the transmitted sciences is from those who already know them. But one cannot follow a mujtahid in matters of faith, because faith pertains to one’s own understanding of God, the prophets, the scriptures, and the Last Day. A Muslim cannot say, "I have faith in God because my mujtahid told me to have faith." Someone who said this would be saying that if the mujtahid told him not to believe in God, he would not. In other words, he would be saying that his faith is empty words.

Although in theory we can distinguish between the transmitted and intellectual sciences, in practice the two have always been closely interrelated, and the transmitted sciences have been the foundation upon which the intellectual sciences are built. One cannot speak properly without grammar, and one cannot understand things Islamically without the Qur’«n and the Hadith. However, the fact that people may have an excellent knowledge of the transmitted sciences does not mean that they know anything at all about the intellectual sciences. Nor does the ability to recite the opinions of the great Muslims on matters of faith prove that the reciter has any understanding of what he is saying.

Both the transmitted and the intellectual sciences are essential to the survival of any religion—not only Islam—and both are gradually being lost. By and large, however, the transmitted sciences have been preserved better than the intellectual sciences, and the reason is obvious. Anyone can learn Qur’«n and Hadith, but very few people can truly understand what God and the Prophet are talking about. One can only understand in one’s own measure. One cannot understand mathematics (or any of the other intellectual sciences) without both native ability and training. One may have a great aptitude for mathematics, but without long years of study, one will never get very far. And mathematics deals with issues that are relatively near at hand, even in the most sophisticated of its modern forms. What about theology, which deals with the deepest issues of reality, the furthest from our everyday experience?

It is important to stress that no religion can survive, much less flourish, without a living intellectual tradition. In order to verify this—because this statement should not be accepted on the basis of taqlâd —we can ask the questions, What was the intellectual tradition for? What function did it play in Islamic society? What was its goal? To ask these questions is the same as asking, "Why should Muslims think?" The basic answer is that Muslims should think because they must think, because they are thinking beings. They have no choice but to think, because God gave them minds and intelligence when He created them. Not only that, but God has commanded them to think and to employ their intelligence in numerous Qur,«nic verses.

No doubt, this does not mean that God requires all Muslims to enter into the sophisticated sort of study and reflection that went on in the intellectual tradition, because it is obvious that not everyone has the proper sort of talents, capacities, and circumstances to do so. Nevertheless, all Muslims have the moral and religious obligation to use their minds correctly—if they have minds. As the Qur’«n puts it, l« yukallifu All«hu nafsan ill« wus‘ah«, "God does not burden any soul save to its capacity." When people’s capacity includes thinking, God has given them the burden of thinking correctly. But He does not tell them what to think, because then He would be making taqlâd incumbent in intellectual matters. If many of the Ulama have forbidden taqlâd in matters of uÄël, it is because God Himself forbids it. He has given people minds, and they cannot use their minds correctly if they simply accept dogma or opinions on the basis of authority. To think properly a person must actually think, which is to say that conclusions must be reached through one’s own intellectual struggle, not someone else’s. Any teacher of an intellectual science—like mathematics or philosophy—knows this perfectly well.

It is true that many if not most people are unreflective and would never even ask why they should think about things. They simply go about their daily routine and imagine that they understand their own situation. In any case, they suppose, God wants nothing more from them than observing the Shariah. But this is no argument for those who have the ability to stop and think. Anyone who has the capacity and talent to reflect upon God, the universe, and the human soul must do so. Not to do so is to betray one’s God-given nature and to disobey God’s commandments.

Since some Muslims have no choice but to think, learning how to think correctly must be an important area of Muslim effort. But what defines "correct" thinking? How do we tell the difference between right thinking and wrong thinking? Does the fact that people have no choice but to think mean that they are free to think anything they want? The Islamic answer to this sort of question has always been that the way people think is far from indifferent. Some modes of thinking are encouraged by the Qur’«n and the Sunnah, some are discouraged. Islamically, it is incumbent upon those who think to employ their minds in ways that coincide with the goals of the Qur’«n and the Sunnah. In other words, the goal of the Islamic intellectual tradition must coincide with the goal of Islam, or else it is not Islamic intellectuality.

So, what is the goal of Islam? In general terms, Islam’s goal is to bring people back to God. However, everyone is going back to God in any case, so the issue is not going back, but how one goes back. Through the Qur’«n and the Sunnah, God guides people back to Him in a manner that will ensure their everlasting happiness. If they want to follow a "straight path" (Äir«Ç mustaqâm), one that will lead to happiness and not to misery, they need to employ their minds, awareness, and thinking in ways that are harmonious with God Himself, who is the only true Reality. If they follow illusion and unreality, they will be following a crooked path and most likely will not end up in a pleasant place when they go back.

The history of Islamic intellectuality is embodied in the various forms that Muslims have adopted over time in attempting to think rightly and correctly. The intellectual tradition was robust and lively, so disagreements were common. Nevertheless, in all the different schools of thought that have appeared over Islamic history, one principle has been agreed upon by everyone. This principle is the fact that God is one and that He is the only source of truth and reality. He is the origin of all things, and all things return to Him. This principle, as everyone knows, is called tawÁâd, "asserting the unity of God." To think Islamically is to recognize God’s unity and to draw the proper consequences from His unity. Differences of opinion arise concerning the proper consequences, not in the fact that God is one.

The consequences that people draw from tawÁâd depend largely on their understanding of "God." Typically, Muslims have sought to understand God by meditating upon the implications of God’s names and attributes as expressed in the Qur’«n and the Sunnah. The conclusions reached in these meditations have everything to do with how God is understood. If He is understood primarily as a Lawgiver, people will draw conclusions having to do with the proper observance of the Sharâ‘ah. If He is understood primarily as wrathful, they will conclude that they must avoid His wrath. If He is understood primarily as merciful, they will think that they must seek out His mercy. If He is understood primarily as beautiful, they will know that they must love Him. God, of course, has "ninety-nine names"—at least—and every name throws different light on what exactly God is, what exactly He is not, and how exactly people should understand Him and relate to Him. Naturally, thoughtful Muslims have always understood God in many ways, and they have drawn diverse conclusions on the basis of each way of understanding. This diversity of understanding in the midst of tawÁâd is prefigured in the Prophet’s prayer, "O God, I seek refuge in Your mercy from Your wrath, I seek refuge in Your good pleasure from Your displeasure, I seek refuge in You from You."

Obstacles to Recovery

My title indicates that I think the Islamic intellectual heritage has largely been lost in modern times. This is a vast topic, and I cannot begin to offer proofs for my assertion, but I think it is obvious to most Muslims who have some awareness of their own history. What I can do here is to offer a few suggestions as to the obstacles that stand in the way of recovery. For present purposes, I want to deal with two basic sorts of obstacles, though there are other sorts as well. First are intellectual forces that originally came from outside. They are intimately connected with the types of thinking that grew up in Western Europe and America and have come to dominate in the modern world. However, they have long since become an internal problem, because most Muslims have either actively and eagerly adopted them as their own, or they been molded by them without being aware of the fact. Given that these intellectual forces have now been internalized, they have given rise to a second group of obstacles, which are modern attitudes and social forces within the Islamic community that prevent recovery.

In suggesting the nature of the first category of obstacles, we can begin with a basic question: Is it possible nowadays to think Islamically? Or, Is it possible to be a "Muslim intellectual" in the modern world? By this, I do not mean an intellectual who is by religious affiliation a follower of Islam, but rather an individual who thinks Islamically about the three basic dimensions of Islam—practice, faith, and sincerity— while living in the midst of modernity.

I have no doubt that there are tens of thousands of Muslim intellectuals in the ordinary sense of the word—that is, Muslim writers, professors, doctors, lawyers, and scientists who are concerned with intellectual issues. But I have serious doubts as to whether any more than a tiny fraction of such people are "Muslim intellectuals" in the sense in which I mean the term. Yes, there are many thoughtful and intellectually sophisticated people who were born as followers of Islam and who may indeed practice it carefully. But do they think Islamically? Is it possible to be both a scientist in the modern sense and a Muslim who understands the universe and the human soul as the Qur’«n and the Sunnah explain them? Is it possible to be a sociologist and at the same time to think in terms of tawÁâd ?

It appears to me, as an outside observer, that the thinking of most Muslim intellectuals is not determined by Islamic principles and Islamic understanding, but by habits of mind learned unconsciously in grammar school and high school and then confirmed and solidified by university training. Such people may act like Muslims, but they think like doctors, engineers, sociologists, and political scientists.

It is naive to imagine that one can learn how to think Islamically simply by attending lectures once a week or by reading a few books written by contemporary Muslim leaders, or by studying the Qur’«n, or by saying one’s prayers and having "firm faith." In the traditional Islamic world, the great thinkers and intellectuals spent their whole lives searching for knowledge and deepening their understanding. The Islamic intellectual heritage is extraordinarily rich. Hundreds of thousands of books were written, and in modern times the majority of even the important books are not available, because they have never been printed. Those that have been printed are rarely read by Muslim intellectuals, and those few that have been translated from Arabic and Persian into English and other modern languages have, by and large, been badly translated, so little guidance will be found in the translations.

I do not mean to suggest that it would be necessary to read all the great books of the intellectual tradition in their original languages in order to think Islamically. If modern-day Muslims could read one of these important books, even in translation, and understand it, their thinking would be deeply effected. However, the only way to understand such books is to prepare oneself for understanding, and that demands dedication, study, and training. This cannot be done on the basis of a modern university education, unless, perhaps, one has devoted it to the Islamic tradition (I say "perhaps" because many Muslims and non-Muslims with Ph-D in Islamic Studies cannot read and understand the great books of the intellectual heritage).

Given that modern schooling is rooted in topics and modes of thought that are not harmonious with traditional Islamic learning, it is profoundly difficult today for any thinking and practicing Muslim to harmonize the domain of intellectuality with the domain of faith and practice. One cannot study for many years and then be untouched by what one has studied. There is no escape from picking up mental habits from the types of thinking that one devotes one’s life to. It is most likely, and almost, but not quite inevitable, for modern intellectuals with religious faith to have compartmentalized minds — I will not go so far as to say "split personalities," but that is common enough. One compartment of the mind will encompass the professional, intellectual domain, and the other the domain of personal piety and practice. Although individuals may rationalize the relationship between the two domains, they necessarily do so in terms of the world view that is determined by the rational side of the mind, which is the professional, modern side. The world view established by the Qur’«n and passed down by generations of Muslims will be closed to such people, and hence they will draw their rational categories and their ways of thinking from their professional training and the ever-shifting Zeitgeist that is embodied in contemporary intellectual trends and popularized through television and other forms of mass indoctrination.

Many Muslim scientists tell us that modern science helps them see the wonders of God’s creation, and this is certainly an argument for preferring the natural sciences over the social sciences. But is it necessary to study physics or bio– chemistry to see the signs of God in all His creatures? The Qur’«n keeps on telling Muslims, "Will you not reflect, will you not ponder, will you not think?" About what? About the "signs" («y«t) of God, which are found, as over two hundred Qur’«nic verses remind us, in everything. In short, one does not need to be a great scientist, or any scientist at all, to understand that the world tells us about the majesty of its Creator. Any fool knows this. This is what the Prophet called the "religion of old women" (dân al-‘aj«’iz), and no one needs any intellectual training to understand it. It is simply necessary to look at the world, and it becomes obvious to "those with minds" (ulu ’l-alb«b).

It is true that a basic understanding of the signs of God may provide sufficient knowledge for salvation. After all, the Prophet said, aktharu ahl al-jannati bulhun, "Most of the people of paradise are fools." However, the foolishness that leads to paradise demands foolishness concerning the affairs of this world, and that is very difficult to come by nowadays. It is certainly not found among Muslim intellectuals. They are already far too clever, and this explains why they are such good doctors and engineers. In other words, they have already employed and developed their minds, so they have no choice but to be intellectuals. Inescapably, their intelligence has been shaped and formed by their education, their disciplines, and the media.

The Gods of Modernity

The information and habits of mind that are imparted by modernity are not congruent with Islamic learning. Perhaps the best way to demonstrate this concisely is to reflect on the characteristics of modernity—by which I mean the thinking and norms of the "global culture" in which we live today. It should be obvious that whatever characterizes modernity, it is not tawÁâd, the first principle of Islamic thinking. Rather, it is fair to say that modernity is characterized by the opposite of tawÁâd. One could call this shirk or "associating others with God." But for most Muslims, the word shirk is too emotionally charged to be of much help in the discussion. Moreover, they have lost touch with what it really means, because they are unacquainted with the Islamic intellectual tradition, where tawÁâd and shirk are analyzed and explained. So let me call the characteristic trait of modernity "takthâr," which is the literal opposite of tawÁâd. TawÁâd means to make things one, and, in the religious context, it means "asserting that God is one." Takthâr mean to make things many, and in this context I understand it to mean "asserting that the gods are many."

Modern times and modern thought lack a single center, a single orientation, a single goal, any single purpose at all. Modernity has no common principle or guideline. In other words, there is no single "god"—since a god is what gives meaning and orientation to life. A god is what you serve. The modern world serves many, many gods. Through an ever-intensifying process of takthâr, the gods have been multiplied beyond count, and people worship whatever god appeals to them, usually several at once.

The truth of my assertion becomes obvious if we compare the intellectual history of the West and Islamic civilization. Up until recent times, Islamic thought was characterized by a tendency toward unity, harmony, integration, and synthesis. The great Muslim thinkers were masters of many disciplines, but they looked upon all of them as branches of a single tree, the tree of tawÁâd. There was never any contradiction between studying astronomy and zoology, or physics and ethics, or mathematics and law, or mysticism and logic. Everything was governed by the same principles, because everything fell under God’s all-encompassing reality.

The history of Western thought is characterized by the opposite tendency. Although there was a great deal of unitarian thinking in the medieval period, from the Middle Ages onward there has been constantly increasing dispersion and multiplicity. "Renaissance men" could know a great deal about all the sciences and at the same time have a unifying vision. But nowadays, everyone is an expert in some tiny field of specialization, and "information" increases exponentially. The result is mutual incomprehension and universal disharmony. It is impossible to establish any unity of knowledge, and no real communication takes place among the specialists in different disciplines, or even among specialists in different subfields of the same discipline. In short, people in the modern world have no unifying principles, and the result is an ever-increasing multiplicity of goals and desires, an ever-intensifying chaos.

Despite the chaos, everyone has gods that he or she worships. No one can survive in an absolute vacuum, with no goal, no significance, no meaning, no orientation. The gods people worship are those points of reference that give meaning and context to their lives. The difference between traditional objects of worship and modern objects of worship is that in modernity, it is almost impossible to subordinate all the minor gods to a supreme god, and when this is done, the supreme god is generally one that has been manufactured by ideologies. It is certainly not the God of tawÁâd, who negates the reality of all other gods. However, it may well be a blatant imitation of the God of tawÁâd, especially when religion enters into the domain of politics.

The gods in the world of takthâr are legion. To mention the more important ones would be to list the defining myths and ideologies of modern times—evolution, progress, science, medicine, nationalism, socialism, democracy, Marxism, freedom, equality. But perhaps the most dangerous of the gods are those that are the most difficult to recognize for what they are, because we in the modern world take them for granted and look upon them much as we look upon the air that we breathe. Let me list the most common of these gods by their seemingly innocuous names: basic need, care, communication, consumption, development, education, energy, exchange, factor, future, growth, identity, information, living standard, management, model, modernization, planning, production, progress, project, raw material, relationship, resource, role, service, sexuality, solution, system, welfare, work. These are some, but not all, of the ninety-nine most beautiful gods of modernity, and reciting their names is the dhikr of modern man.

Anyone who wants an analysis and explanation of the nature of these gods should refer to the book Plastic Words by the German linguist, Uwe Poerksen. The subtitle is more instructive as to what the book is all about: The Tyranny of a Modular Language. Poerksen explains how the modern use of language—a use that achieved dominance after the Second World War—has resulted in the production of a group of words that have turned into the most destructive tyrants the world has ever seen. He does not call them "gods," because he is linguist and has no apparent interest in theology. Nevertheless, he does give them the label "tyrant," and this is a good translation for the Qur’«nic divine name, al-jabb«r. When this name is applied to God, it means that God has absolute controlling power over creation. "Tyranny" becomes a bad thing when it is ascribed to creatures, because it indicates that they have usurped God’s power and authority. In the case of the plastic words, the usurpation has taken place at the hands of certain words that are used to shape discussion of societal goals.

As Poerksen points out, these tyrannical words have at least thirty common characteristics. The most important of these is that they have no definition, though they do have an aura of goodness and beneficence about them. In linguistic terms, this is to say that such words have no "denotation," but they do have many "connotations." There is no such thing as "care" or "welfare" or "standard of living," but these words suggest many good things to most people. They are abstract terms that seem to be scientific, so they carry an aura of authority in a world in which science is one of the most important of the supreme gods.

Each of these words turns something indefinable into a limitless ideal. By making the ideal limitless, the word awakens unlimited needs in people, and once these needs are awakened, they appear to be self-evident. The Qur’«n says that God is the rich, and that people are the poor toward God. In other words, people have no real need except toward God. But nowadays, people feel need toward meaningless concepts, and they think that they must have them. These empty idols have become the objects of people’s devotion and worship.

The plastic words give great power to those who speak on their behalf. Anyone who uses these words—care, communication, consumption, information, development—gains prestige, because he speaks for god and truth, and this forces other people to keep silent. After all, we think, only a complete idiot would object to care and development. Everyone must follow those whose only concern is to care for us and to help us develop.

The mujtahids who speak for these mini-gods are, of course, the "experts." Each of the plastic words sets up an ideal and encourages us to think that only the experts can achieve it, so we must entrust our lives to them. We must follow the authority of the scientific mujtahids, who lay down shariahs for our health, our welfare, and our education. People treat the pronouncements of the experts as fatw«s. If the experts reach consensus (ijm«‘) that we must destroy a village as a sacrificial offering to the god "development," we have no choice but to follow their authority. The mujtahids know best.

Each of the plastic words makes other words appear backwards and out-of-date. We can be proud of worshipping these gods, and all of our friends and colleagues will consider us quite enlightened for reciting the proper dhikrs and du‘«’s. Those who still take the old God seriously can cover up this embarrassing fact by worshipping the new gods along with Him. And obviously, many people who continue to claim to worship the old-fashioned God twist His teachings so that He also seems to be telling us to serve "care, communication, consumption, identity, information, living standard, management, resource . . ." — the dhikr is well enough known.

Because the plastic gods have no denotations, all those who believe in them are able to understand them in terms of the connotations that appeal to then and then convince themselves that they are serving the basic need that is stated in the very name of the god, because, after all, it is a self-evident need. We are poor toward it and we must serve it. It is obvious to everyone that these gods are worthy of devotion. Religious people will have no trouble giving a religious color to these tyrants. In the name of the plastic gods, people of good will join together to transform the world, with no understanding that they are serving man-made idols, idols that, as the Qur’«n puts it, "your own hands have wrought."

The topic of false gods is vast, especially nowadays, when more false gods exist than were ever found in the past. The Qur’«n tells us that every prophet came with the message of tawÁâd, and that God sent a prophet to every community. Every community of the past had its own version of tawÁâd, even if people sometimes fell into shirk because of ignorance and forgetfulness. But in modern society, there are nothing but the gods of takthâr, and these gods, by definition, leave no room for tawÁâd.

Understanding the nature of false gods has always been central to the intellectual sciences, but this cannot be the concern of the transmitted sciences. One cannot accept that "There is no god but God" simply on the basis of taqlâd. The statement must be understood for people to have true faith in it, even if their understanding is far from perfect. Hence most of the Islamic intellectual tradition has been concerned with clarifying and explaining the objects of faith. What is it that Muslims have faith in? How are they to understand these objects? Why should they have faith in them?

The first of the Islamic objects of faith is God, then angels, prophets, the Last Day, and the "measuring out, the good of it and the evil of it" (al-qadri khayrihâ wa sharrihâ). In discussing God and the other objects of faith, it is important to explain not only they are, but also what they are not. When people do not know what God is and when they do not know that it is easy to fall into the habit of worshipping false gods, then they will have no protection against the takthâr of the modern world, the multiplicity of gods that modern ways of thinking demand that they serve.

What is striking about contemporary Islam’s encounter with modernity is that Muslims lack the intellectual preparation to deal with the situation. Muslim intellectuals—with a few honorable exceptions—do not question the legitimacy of the modern gods. Rather, they debate about the best way to serve the new tyrants. In other words, they think that Islamic society must be modified and adapted to follow the standards set by modernity, standards that are built on the basis of takthâr. This is to say that innumerable modern-day Muslims are forever looking for the best ways to adapt Islam to shirk.

Many Muslims today recognize that the West has paid too high a price for modernization and secularization. They see that various social crises have arisen in all modernized societies, and they understand that these crises are somehow connected with the loss of the religious traditions and the devaluation of ethical and moral guidelines. But many of these same people tell us that Islam is different. Islam can adopt the technology and the know-how—the "progress," the "development," the "expertise"— while preserving Islam’s moral and spiritual strength and thereby avoiding the social disintegration of the West. In other words, they think, Muslims can forget tawÁâd, embark on a course of takthâr, and suffer no negative consequences.

The fact that so many people think this way and do not recognize the absurdity of their position shows that they have lost the vision of tawÁâd that used to give life to Islamic thinking. They cannot see that everything is interrelated, and they fail to understand that the worship of false gods necessarily entails the dissolution of every sort of order—the corruption not only of individuals and society, but also of the natural world. In other words, when people refuse to serve God as He has asked them to serve Him, they cannot fulfill the functions for which He has created them. The net result is that our world becomes ever more chaotic. A significant Qur’«nic verse here is this: "Corruption has appeared in the land and the sea because of what the hands of people have earned" (30: 41). When people follow the gods of takthâr, corruption can only increase, and it will end up by destroying the natural world just as it is destroying society. "Corruption" (fas«d), after all, is defined as the lack of "wholesomeness" (Äal«Á), and wholesomeness is wholeness, health, balance, harmony, coherence, order, integration, and unity, all of which are established through tawÁâd or "making things one."

Attitudinal Obstacles

The second sort of obstacle preventing the recovery of the intellectual heritage can be discerned on the societal level in the attitudes and habits of mind that have been adopted by modern-day Muslims. These result from the loss of intellectual independence and have become embodied in the institutions and structures of contemporary society. I will not attempt to go into details. Instead let me suggest that these obstacles become manifest in various currents that are not difficult to see, such as the politicization of the community, monolithic interpretations of Islamic teachings, and blind acceptance of the teachings of contemporary Muslim leaders (in other words taqlâd where there should be taÁqâq). Perhaps the broadest and most pernicious of these obstacles, however, is the general attitude that one might call "anti-traditionalism."

Although Islam, like other religions, is built on tradition—the sum total of the transmitted and intellectual heritages—many Muslims see no contradiction between believing in the gods of modernity and accepting the authority of the Qur’«n and the Sunnah. In order to do this, however, they need to ignore thirteen hundred years of Islamic intellectual history and pretend that no one needs the help of the great thinkers of the past to understand and interpret the Qur’«n and the Sunnah.

We need to keep in mind that if there is any universally accepted dogma in the modern world, it is the rejection of tradition. The great prophets of modernity—Descartes, Rousseau, Marx, Freud—followed a variety of gods, but they all agreed that the old gods were no longer of any use. In the Islamic view, God’s prophets share tawÁâd. In contrast, the modern prophets share the rejection of tawÁâd and the assertion of takthâr. One can only reject God’s unity by inventing other gods to replace Him.

In traditional Islamic terms, God is qadâm," ancient" or "eternal." God has always been and always will be. In modernity, the gods are new. To stay new, they have to be changed or modified frequently. The new is always to be preferred over the old, which is "outmoded" and "backwards." Science is always making new discoveries, and technology is constantly offering new inventions that all of us quickly think we need. Anything that is not in the process of renewal is thought to be dead.

One name for this god of newness is "originality." He rules by ordaining new styles and models, and his priests are found everywhere, especially in the domains of advertising and mass indoctrination. Thus we have the fashion mujtahids who tell women what to wear and who change their fatw«s every year. Originality’s priests also exercise authority in the world of art. Or take the modern university, where many professors adopt the latest intellectual styles as soon as they arrive on the scene. In much of the modern university, as in women’s fashion, Paris rules.

The greatest danger of anti-traditionalism for modern Muslims is that they have accepted this god—like so many others—without giving any thought to what they are doing. Hence they think that for thirteen hundred years, Muslims had nothing to say. They want to retain their Muslim identity, but they imagine that in order to do this, it is sufficient to keep their allegiance to the Qur’«n and the Sunnah, blithely ignoring the great interpreters of the tradition over the centuries.

If people think they no longer need the grand interpreters, this seems to be because they believe in the gods of progress, science, and development. They tell us that today we know so much more about the world than those people of olden times, because we have science. People who think this way usually know nothing about science except what they are taught by the media, and they certainly know nothing about the Islamic intellectual tradition. They are blind obedientalists on the intellectual level, even though taqlâd is absurd in such matters. What is worse, this is a selective taqlâd. They will only accept the intellectual authority of the "scientists" and the "experts," not that of the great Muslim thinkers of the past. If Einstein said it, it must be true, but if Ghazz«lâ or Mull« Âadr« said it, it is "unscientific"—which is to say that it is false.

If such people really knew something about the intellectual roots and bases of science and theology, they would know that science has nothing to say to theology, but theology has plenty to say to science. The reason for this is that theology is rooted in tawÁâd, and hence it can look down from above and discern the interconnectedness of all things. But science is rooted in takthâr, so it is stuck to the level of multiplicity—the lowest domain of reality—and it can only dissect this multiplicity and rearrange it endlessly. Even when it is able to gain a certain overview of interconnections, it does this without being able to explain how it can do so or what the ultimate significance of these interconnections may be. By its own premises, science is banned from the invisible domains—what the Qur’«n calls ghayb. If it has nothing to say about angels and spirits, which are sometimes called the "relative ghayb," it has even less to say about God, the "absolute ghayb." In contrast, the Islamic intellectual tradition is rooted in knowledge of God, and thereby it also acquires various modalities of knowing His creation. These are rooted in absolute truth and in certainty, unlike modern disciplines, which are cut off from the Absolute. Only this sort of traditional knowledge can re– establish human connections with the divine.

Finally, let me suggest that the most basic problem of modern Islam is that Muslims suffer from what has traditionally been called "compound ignorance," jahl murakkab. "Ignorance" is not to know. "Compound ignorance" is not to know that you do not know. Too many Muslims do not know what the Islamic tradition is, they do not know how to think Islamically, and they do not know that they do not know. The first step in curing ignorance is to recognize that one does not know. Once people recognize their own ignorance, they can go off in "search of knowledge" (Çalab al-‘ilm)— which, as everyone knows, "is incumbent on every Muslim," and indeed, one would think, on every human being. No recovery of the intellectual tradition is possible until individuals take this step for themselves. The tradition will never be recovered through taqlâd or by community action, only by the dedication of individuals, through their own, personal taÁqâq. Governments and committees cannot begin to solve the problem, because they start from the wrong end. Understanding cannot be imposed or legislated, it can only grow up from the heart.

The Prophet said, "Wisdom is the believer’s lost camel. Wherever he finds it, he recognizes it." People today do not know what wisdom is, and still less do they know that it belongs to them by right. Until they recognize this, they will never know that their camel has been lost. They will think that in any case, camels are no longer of any use, since cars, airplanes, and computers will take them wherever they want to go. It is a tragedy when people have no idea that the only way to cross the desert of modernity without danger is by the camel of wisdom.

http://www.allamaiqbal.com/

Some Basic Characteristics of Islamic

2008-03-25T01:06:00.000-07:00

Some Basic Characteristics of Islamic
Education- With Reference to the
Message of Jal«l al-Dân Rëmâ
Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Yakü bâä o yakü gà o yakü d«ä
Badâä khatm «mad aÄl o far‘ i âm«ä

(See but the One, say but the One, know but the One,
For in this is sealed the root and branches of faith.)
(Shabistarâ)

Islam is the religion of unity (al-tawÁâd) which is both the principle and goal of all things essentially Islamic. This truth is most evident in the case of education that in its widest sense is the goal of the religion itself. Islam sees the human being as being comprised of many faculties and possessing levels of existences from the physical to the spiritual. Nevertheless, he possesses a unity and wholeness that all authentic manifestations of the principle of Islamic education have sought to address. In other words the subject of Islamic education must be the whole of man.

It must then be asked who is man in the Islamic perspective. At once God’s servant (‘abd-Allah) and vicegerent (khalâfat-All«h) on earth, man was created upon the Äërah of God according to the famous Áadâth, "Khalqa All«hu ’l-ÿdama ‘al« Äëratihâ (God created man upon His image) which means that man reflects all of God’s Names and Qualities, God not possessing Äërah or form in the technical sense of the term. By virtue of this reality man can reach the highest perfection of becoming the mirror in which God reflects Himself and "knows" Himself. That is the station of al-ins«n al-k«mil or Universal Man and it might be said that the ultimate goal of Islamic education, especially as envisages by Sufi masters such as Rëmâ, is to enable man to become what he is in reality, that is, the Universal Man.

Man is also the sum of the levels of existence synthesised in a "small" cosmos which for that reason is called microcosm. As such, he contains all the levels of existence within himself including body, soul and intellect or spirit (al-jism, al-nafs, and al-‘aql/al-rëÁ or to use the Persian terminology of Rëmâ (tan, j«n and khirad/j«n-i j«n«n). A complete educational program must therefore cater to the needs to all these realities within man as in fact one sees in traditional Islamic education when it possessed wholeness and was not bereft of any of its major aspects, this being particularly true of Sufi education when it included the formal as well as the purely spiritual aspects of the training and education of the disciple.

***

We need not concern ourselves here with physical education except to recall the fact that traditional living itself caused the body to exercise and that in addition there were such traditional sports as horseback riding, archery, wrestling, etc. Formal education dealt most of all with what today is called the "mind", although this term is understood differently in an Islamic context and the mind was always considered in conjunction with its relation to the Spirit. And so Rëmâ states:

Ay bir«dar të hama andâsha â
m« baq« të ustukh«n o râsha â

O brother thou art all thought,
The rest of thee is but sinew and bones*

One must remember that from the point of view of Islamic metaphysics man is essentially what he knows and we become existentially transformed by our knowledge and become identified ultimately with what we know principially. This knowledge is often identified with vision in Sufi literature and the Sufis speak of that organ with which we are able to know the Invisible World as the eye of the heart (‘ayn al-qalb/chishm i dil) rather than ear or some other organ. Vision symbolises knowledge and is in fact knowledge as we call a wise man a seer or visionary in English. Rëmâ refers to this relationship and ultimate significance of knowledge when he says.

Tu nayâ «ä jism, të «ä dâda â
w« rahâ az jism, gar j«n dâda â
«damâ dâd ast, b«qâ gàsht o pàst
har che chasmash dâda ast, «ä châz àst

(Thou art not this body, thou art that vision,
Thou shalt escape from the body, if thou seest the soul.
Man is vision, the rest is flesh and skin,
Whatever his eye sees, that is what he is.)

No clearer statement can be made of the identity of man’s essence with principial knowledge. But such knowledge can only be attained if mental education is accompanied and complemented by spiritual education. Our mental activity and meditation (fikr) must be illuminated and elevated by the remembrance of God (dhikr)

Fikr kun t« w« rahi az fikr i khud
Dhikr kun t« fikr gardâ dar jasad
Dhikr gà t« fikr i të b«l« kunad
Dhikr guftan fikr r« w«l« kunad

(Meditate until thou becomest free of thought of thyself,
Invoke (remember God) until thy body becomes meditation
Invoke until thy thought is elevated,
For invocation elevates one’s thought/meditation.)

***

Any education implies, however, before anything preparation and readiness in the being of the person who is to undergo the process of education. There must be before anything else an acceptance of one’s ignorance and the yearning to know. The person who is ignorant and is no aware of his ignorance is in the state of what is traditionally called "compound ignorance" (jahl-i murakkab) which is a mortal disease of the mind. One who is infected by it is not in a state that is conducive to being educated. Since Islam places the goal of education not on its worldly results, which are nevertheless legitimate on their own level, but on the soteriological character of knowledge, it places the greatest value in that yearning (Çalab) which qualifies a person for becoming educated. That is why a student in a traditional Islamic school (madrasah) is still called a Ç«lib (pl. Çull«b). The Sufis extend this yearning to the realm of spiritual perfection and consider it as one of the most important qualities of a seeker after inner perfection. In a famous poem Rëmâ goes so far as to say.

ÿb kam jë, tishnagâ «war ba dast
Ta bi jëshad «bat az b«l« o past

(Seek less water, rather become thirsty,
For then water will gush forth from above and below.)

***

Precisely because the goal of Islamic education is ultimately perfection of the human soul and salvation (fal«Á), this type of education is never separated from ethical and moral considerations along with the formal and logical, totally in contrast to modern Western education. This truth can be seen in the curricula of traditional madrasahs, where students study after the Qur’«n and related subjects ‘ilm al-akhl«q or ethics before embarking upon other subjects. As for Sufism, ethical training is at the heart of all Sufi education as demonstrated by the writings of such masters as Im«m Abu ’l-Q«sim al-Qushayrâ and Im«m Abë À«mid MuÁammad al-Ghazz«lâ. For the Sufis this ethical education means also spiritual discipline and the cleansing of one’s heart and mind in addition to correct external action. For once the heart is cleansed the eye of the heart opens and is then able to gain knowledge of that which is externally invisible. Or to use the Qur’«nic symbol of the expansion of the breast,

Har ke r« b«shad zi sâna fatÁ i b«b
ú ze har dharrah bi bânad «ft«b

(Whoever has had the door of his breast opened,
He will be able to see the sun in every atom.)

Education cannot therefore be limited to the training of the rational faculty separated from the Intellect which is its principle and revelation which alone can make accessible the light of the Intellect for it in an operative way and also provide the ethical framework within which the training of reason must take place. Without accepting revelation and its injunctions one ends up with hedonism or a rampant rationalism whose dire consequences for humanity are evident today wherever modernism, which is inseparable from rationalism even if seems to negate it in certain of its manifestations as irrationalism, has spread. Islamic education cannot seek to educate the mind outside of the world of faith.

Falsafâ kë munkar i Áann«nah** ast
Az Áaw«s i anbiy« bâg«na ast

(The rationalist philosopher being in denial of prophecy
Is devoid of the inner sense of the prophets.)

The training of the mind or reason (‘aql-i juz’â ) must always be in relation to revelation (waÁy) on the one hand and the Universal Intellect (‘aql-i kullâ ), which is ultimately none other than the instrument of revelation, on the other. The Mathnawâ is replete with references to ‘aql and the distinction between ‘aql-i juz’â and ‘aql-i kullâ. The latter is in fact the source of all the knowledge attainable by reason, and when Rëmâ criticises ‘aql in favour of love ‘ishq, he has always in mind ‘aql-i juz’â which according to him should be sacrificed before the Blessed Prophet.

‘Aql r« kun të fid« i muÄÇaf«

(Sacrifice thy reason before Mustafa)

As for ‘aql-i kullâ, it is the source of both knowledge of the cosmos and attachment to it, the goal of all veritable education of ‘aql-i juz’â.

¥ä jah«ä yak fikrat ast az ‘aql-i kull
‘Aql-i kull sh«h ast o Äërat h« subul

(This world is but a thought of the Universal Intellect,
The Universal Intellect is king and forms its messengers.)

This awareness of the subordinate role of reason vis-a-vis the Intellect and placing them in a hierarchy is part and parcel of the reality of the hierarchy of all the elements of the human being according to which each lower level must be educated to submit to the higher level in accordance with the natural order of things. The senses must be subordinated to reason and reason to intellect/Spirit.

Àiss asâr i ‘Aql b«shad ay ful«n
‘Aql asâr i rëÁ b«shad ham bad«n

Sense is the prisoner of reason, o man!
And reason prisoner of the Spirit, know this truth.

It is the reality of this hierarchy that an authentic Islamic education must respect and has always respected. It is only the presence of ‘aql i juz’â wed to ‘aql-i kullâ through the gift of faith (âm«n) that can prevent our rebellious passions from bringing ruin upon us and creating an obstacle to the realisation of that perfection for whose attainment we were created.

‘Aql dar tan Á«kim i âm«n buwad
Ke za bâmash nafs dar zind«n buwad

‘aql is the ruler of faith in the body,
From whose fear the passionate ego remains imprisoned.

Ultimately all real education and instruction comes from the ‘aql-i kullâ and waÁy for in Islam revelation is based primarily upon knowledge and its transmission. Lest one forgets, the most famous names by which the Sacred Book of Islam is known, such as al-Qur’«n, al-Furq«n, Umm al-kit«b and al-Hid«yah are all related to the category of knowledge. It is in the light of this truth that Rëmâ goes so far as to say.

¥n nujëm o Çib waÁy i anbiy«st
‘Aql o Áiss r« së i bâsë r«h kuj«st
‘Aql i juzvâ ‘aql i istikhr«j nâst
Juz padhâra i fan o muÁt«j nâst
Q«bili ta‘lâm o fahm ast ân khirad
Lük Ä«Áib waÁy ta‘lâmash dahad
Jumlah Áirfat ha yaqân az waÁy bëd
Awwal ë lük ‘aql «n r« barfazëd
Hâch Áirfat r« bi bân kân ‘aql i m«
T« na d«d «mëkht bâ hâch ëst«

This astronomy and medicine is (knowledge given by) Divine inspiration to the prophets: where is the way for intellect and sense (to advance) towards that which is without (spatial) direction.

The particular (individual) intellect is not the intellect (capable) of production: it is only the receiver of science and is in need (of teaching).

This intellect is capable of being taught and of apprehending, but (only) the man possessed of Divine inspiration gives it the teaching (which it requires). Assuredly, in their beginning, all trades (crafts and professions) were (derived) from Divine inspiration, but the intellect adds (something) to them.

Consider whether this intellect of ours can learn any trade without a master.

Although it (the intellect) was hair-splitting (subtle and ingenious) in contrivance, no trade was subdued (brought under command) without a master.

If knowledge of trade were (derived) from this intellect, any trade would be acquired without a master.

(Nicholson Translation, Book IV, v. 1294-1300)

Without reliance upon ‘aql i kullâ and waÁy, reason usurps the position of centrality in the soul while being unable to attain to authentic knowledge and certitude. It is this version of ‘aql limited to its ratiocinative powers call instidl«l to which Rëmâ refers as the wooden leg which cannot attain firm knowledge.

P« i istadl«liy«n chëbân buwad

The leg of the rationalists is a wooden one.

Islamic education must train this rational faculty but always in light of the tenets of faith and the inalienable link which exists between ‘aql i juz’â and ‘aql i kullâ.

***

Furthermore, Islamic education must include not only a formal aspect represented in formal learning which a master such as Rëmâ possessed to the highest degree, but also intuition, creativity, and the possibility of response to that divinely given intellectual power to which Rëmâ subordinates formal learning. Such an intuitive power cannot be cultivated in all people, but in any case it should not be stifled through formal education by excessive outward regimentation and blind imitation (taqlâd) which as far as the experience of the truth is concerned, and certainly not imitation of models established by the Noble Qur’«n, Hadith and the great traditional figures, was strongly opposed by Rëmâ.

‘Aql dà ‘aql ast awwal muksibâ
Keh dar«mëzâ chu dar maktab Äabâ
Az kit«b o ëst«d o fikr o dhikr
Az ma‘«nâ waz ‘ulëm i khëb o bikr
‘Aql i të afzën shawad bar dâgar«n
Lük të b«shâ za Áifï «n gar«n
LawÁ Á«fiï b«shâ andar dawr o gasht
LawÁ maÁfëï ast kë zân dar guzasht
‘Aql i dâgar bakhsishi yazd«n buwad
Chasm« i «n darmiy«n i j«n buwad
Chën za sâna «b i d«nish jësh kard
Ne shawad ganda na dârâna na zard

Intelligence consists of two intelligences; the former is the acquired one which you learn, like a boy at school, From book and teacher and reflection and (committing to) memory, and from concepts, and from excellent and virgin (hitherto unstudied) sciences.

(By this means) your intelligence becomes superior to (that of) others; but through preserving (retaining in your mind) that (knowledge) you are heavily burdened.

You, (occupied) in wandering and going about (in search of knowledge), are a preserving (recording) tablet; the preserved tablet is he that has passed beyond this.

The other intelligence is the gift of God: its fountain is in the midst of the soul.

Went the water of (God-given) knowledge gushes from the breast, it does not become fetid or old or yellow (impure); And if its way issue (to outside) be stopped, what harm? for it gushes continually from the house (of the heart). The acquired intelligence is like the conduits that run into a house from the streets:

(If) its (the house’s) waterway is blocked, it is without any supply (of water). Seek the fountain from within yourself!

(Nicholson Translation, Book IV, v. 1960-1968)

***

Since Islamic education embraces the whole of man’s being from the physical to the mental to the spiritual, it must include of necessity not only an ethical dimension but also an aesthetic one. The role and significance of aesthetic education is vast and its discussion would necessitate a separate treatment. Nevertheless, it is important to mention it here and also to add that of all the Muslim authorities, none has dealt with the philosophy of beauty and the importance of art and aesthetics with the same depth and thoroughness as Rëmâ. Suffice it to say that this incomparable sage/poet whose life was enundated with manifestations of beauty considered God Himself as man’s teacher in the arts. As he states in this rub«‘â,

Man «shiqâ az kal«m i të «mëzam
Bayt o ghazal az jam«l i të «mëzam
Dar parda i dil khayal i të raqÄ kunad
Man raqÄ ham az khay«l i të «mëzam

I learn love from Thy Word,
I learn poems and ghazals from Thy Beauty.
The imagining of Thee dances through the veil of the heart,
I learn the sacred dance from imagining Thee.

***

The highest goal of an Islamic education must correspond of necessity to the highest aim and purpose of the human state and in fact of creation which is to know God according to the famous hadith, "I was a hidden treasure; I wanted to be known; therefore I created the world so that I would be known," a hadith known generally as the hadith of kanz makhfi or "hidden treasure". Now, this supreme knowledge is not possible without that attraction and love which Rëmâ calls ‘ishq. In fact the verb "wanted" in the above hadith is the rendition of the Arabic verb aÁbabtë which means in reality "loved to". Love is therefore inseparable from this supreme knowledge, this love not being simple human emotion but a divine reality about which Rëmâ said:

Sh«d bash ay ‘ishq i khush sawd« i m«
Ay Çabâb i ijumlah ‘illat h« i m«
Ay daw« i nakhwat o n«mës i m«
Ay të Afl«Çën o J«lânës i m«

Hail O Love that bringest us good gain-thou that art the physician of all our ills.
The remedy of our pride and vain glory, our Plato and our Galen!
(Nicholson Translation, Book I, v.23-24)

No wonder that for Rëmâ the person who does not possess this fire of love is unworthy to exist as a human being.

ÿtash ast ân b«ng i nay o nâst b«d
Har keh ân «tash na d«radnâst b«d

This sound of the reed is fire, not wind,
Whose does not possess this fire, may be he naught!

True education must turn the spark of that fire which lies somewhere under the cinder of our hardened heart and forgetful mind into a burning flame without which we live beneath the veritable human state.

***

Islamic education is thus based upon a gradation ranging from the physical to the mental and rational to the spiritual in accordance with the structure of the human state. It is also an educational system permeated on all these levels by the light of faith and combined with ethical and aesthetic components at every stage. The crowning achievement of this education is to make possible the knowledge of God through the illumination of our being by the Universal Intellect with the help of that fire of love or ‘ishq which was kneaded into the very clay of our existence when God created us. This love must therefore permeate all aspects of education from the love of knowledge to the love between teacher and student that on the higher level becomes the love between spiritual master and disciple. As the Persian poet Naïârâ has said,

Dars i faqâh ar buwad zamzama i maÁabbatü
Jum‘ah ba maktab «warad Çifl i gurayz p« i r«

Were the lessons of the teacher be a chant of love, It would bring the fleeting child to school on Friday.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note and References

*All translations of Persian poetry unless otherwise stated are by us. The poems of Rëmâ are from his Mathnawâ, except where stated.

**Àann«nah is the tree against which the Blessed Prophet of Islam leaned while preaching and announcing the verses of the Qur’«nic revelation. Hence Rëmâ uses it poetically as the equivalent of prophecy itself.

http://www.allamaiqbal.com/

THE GOOD READER

2008-03-25T00:48:00.000-07:00

Teaching Reading From Birth On
JESSIE WISE

I. THE STORY

II. HOW A CHILD LEARNS TO READ
A. He hears speech sounds.
B. He learns the letters that represent these speech sounds.
C. He learns that these letters, when joined together, make real words.
D. He learns that words are combined to form sentences.

III. PRE-READING INSTRUCTION AND ACTIVITIES

A. Have him frequently hear adult spoken language
1. Talk and sing
2. Repeat same words, phrases, rhymes, songs, stories

B. Read aloud to the child
1. When you read aloud, often running your finger under words, you show the child that
a. we read books right-side-up
b. we read printed words, not just pictures
c. we turn pages right to left as we go through a book
d. we read sentences from left to right
2. Reading aloud
a. develops advanced vocabulary
b. develops ability to use words in meaningful context
c. develops love of reading
3. Supplement reading aloud by using books on tape

C. Teach him to recognize alphabet letters
1. Learn alphabet song
2. Learn to say alphabet in order
3. Learn to put alphabet letters in order
4. Learn to match upper- and lower-case letters

Resources:

The “Lauri”A-Z lowercase puzzle learningforallages.com.
Item Number LR2306 A-Z ; $8.50.

Upper-case/lowercase matching puzzle letters
abcstuff.com
Search for “26 Alphabet UC & LC puzzles”

Black and white manuscript chart with both upper- and lower-case letters teachersparadise.com
Search for “Manuscript Alphabet Chart”
Item Number FS-2398 and is $1.95.

D. Teach him the sounds these letters represent
1. Run your finger under print as you read
2. Point out and read print on products and signs
3. Teach the names and short sounds of vowels
a as in “apple”
e as in “egg”
i as in “igloo”
o as in “octopus”
u as in “umbrella”
4. Do exaggerated mirror play
5. Play letter-sound games

E. Formal Phonics Instruction for Fours, Fives, & Some Threes

1. Limit TV and videos

2. Teach systematic phonics

3. Start with 10 minutes a day gradually extend to 30 minutes

4. Train attention span

5. Don’t panic about reversals

-cover & uncover word letter-sound by letter sound

-“b”-“d” and “p”-“q” trick

IV.TEACHING READING, WRITING, AND SPELLING

A. Teach just reading when beginning phonics instruction.

B. Do not tie reading instruction to the ability of the child to write and spell. This method hinders reading progress in many children.

V. REMEDIAL READING WITH AN OLDER CHILD

A. Begin NOW.

B. Faulty methods of teaching reading can cause some children to be misdiagnosed with a disability later on.

C. The fourth-grade slump is common.

D. Begin at the beginning of a systematic phonics program.

E. Listen to child read aloud.

F. Watch the child’s eye movements when he is reading.

G. Children may be called “disabled” when the only special education they need is to be taught a successful method of learning how to read.

H. Even true dyslexics need to be taught phonics.

I. Read TO the child while he is learning a new way to read.

J. Don’t be discouraged at the length of time it will take. This is a skill for life.

VI. GENERAL SUGGESTIONS FOR THE PHONICS LESSON
A. Be patient

B. Be frequent

C. Be consistent

D. Review, review, review

E. Don’t be hasty to assume speech therapy is necessary.

F. Know that reversals are not necessarily a sign of dyslexia.

G. Train the child’s eyes to move left to right when reading words and sentences.

1. Cover the word; uncover it as it is sounded out.

2. Allow the child to use his finger to keep his place.

3. As necessary, allow child to use plain piece of folded paper under line to keep on the correct line. Move down page line-by-line as he reads.

VII. MANAGING THE READING SESSION
A. Be Consistent

B. Minimize distractions

C. Be aware of low blood sugar and thirst

D. Expect hills and plateaus Train attention span

E. Do some form of reading each day

F. Gently prod child to exert mental effort

G. Do not allow bad attitudes

H. Be sensitive to level of child’s frustration

VIII. ORAL READING AND FLUENCY

A. Instructor models fluency.

B. Student reads same passage four times as instructor offers guidance.

C. Engage in other activities.
1. Student may read aloud along with a taped book.
2. Student and instructor may read some passages in unison .

IX. COMPREHENSION

A. Teach phonics first; teach comprehension later.

B. Talk to child first about the meanings of new words.

C. Ask comprehension questions to beginning readers about material you read TO him.

D. Use narration (student’s retelling in his own words) to practice comprehension.

E. Evaluate comprehension at the optimum time—when he can read the passage independently.

X. ENCOURAGING A CHILD TO READ

A. Engage child in 3 different levels of reading:
1. Below Level (Easy)
a. Increases enjoyment of reading because he is not struggling
b. Increases speed
c. Increases confidence
d. Builds vocabulary
2. On Level
3. Instructional Level

B. Encourage child to develop a habit of reading for fun
1. Visit the library often.

2. Read to the child—lots.

3. Read a portion of interesting book; then give book to child to finish.

4. At some period of the day (afternoon rest time or bedtime), make reading the only activity allowed.

5. Severely limit TV and videos.

6. Encourage selection of different kinds of books:

a. Science
b. History
c. Art or Music Appreciation
d. Practical (craft, hobby, “how-to”)
e. Biography/Autobiography
f. Classic Novel (or adaptation suited to age)
g. Imaginative Storybook
h. Poetry
i. Religious Book

Essential, Efficient, and Encouraging Education

2008-03-25T00:46:00.000-07:00

2007
Essential, Efficient, and Encouraging Education
Jessie WiseI. Stories
1. My education
2. Educating my children

II. Essential Education

The Method of Classical Education
• First, the child works to master basic skills
• Next, the child learns to reason
• Then, he learns to express himself and pursue a special interest

Early grades should focus on these skills:
1. Read what is printed on a page
2. Comprehend what is read
3. Speak Standard English clearly and correctly
4. Communicate in writing using proper syntax, spelling, and word meaning
5. Learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division
These are the tools to communicate creativity.

Repetition for mastery of skills lays the foundation for understanding and expression as the child matures.

Middle grades should focus on
1. Acquiring more content and basic skills
2. Reasoning about content—thinking through an argument
3. Doing critical thinking exercises and taking a logic course

Upper grades (high school) should focus on self-expression
1. Thinking through his/her own ideas
2. Expressing ideas verbally
3. Writing about ideas

III. Efficient Education

Education that is not Efficient
• teaches concepts to young children for which they are not ready
• spends too much time re-teaching skills the older child should have mastered earlier
• promotes critical thinking for children who are too immature to do it
• pushes creativity too early—taking time from learning basic skills

Efficient means “highly effective and productive.”

Efficient Education…
• gives the child tools for gaining information himself—this prepares him for a lifetime of self-education.

• returns to structured reading instruction based on the sounds that letters represent.

• incorporates repetition to teach young children the necessary basic skills.

• provides structure in both content and time management.

• sets reasonable goals and requires the child to meet them.

• gives the child correct models from which to work.

• does not value creativity over accuracy.

• corrects work so the child forms correct habits.

• believes mature adults should make many decisions for the immature child.

Teach the middle school child critical thinking and logic.
This helps him understand cause and effect.
Critical thinking and logic helps the child’s writing.

Teach the high school student to express himself persuasively with WORDS.

IV. Encouraging Education

A. Encouragement

• consists of more than just saying words

• raises a child’s confidence to do what is difficult

• needs an external agent (you)

• leads the child to real achievement

• is doing what is best for the child, even if he is not happy or excited about it. “Feeling good” at the moment is a poor substitute for the lasting satisfaction of truly learning.

B. Correction

1. Correction is positive when it affirms that the child can correct his mistakes and successfully complete a task.

2. Instructor should be sensitive to frustration.

3. Instructor should offer patient, frequent, and
consistent help.

C. Discouragement can come
• when the child is pushed to quickly
• when the child is pushed beyond his ability
• when the child is belittled
• when you speak sarcastically to the child

D. Success

1. Assume an expectation of the child’s success.

2. Work to train habits that lead to success.

3. Encourage the child on the way to success.

4. Praise effort and diligence and attitude and
progress—no matter how small!

V. Conclusion

Our goal is to provide our children with essential, efficient, and encouraging education.

We train children in the essential skills.

We require children to use their growing abilities efficiently.

We patiently encourage them to maturity and excellence.

Note To Self...

2008-01-21T11:58:00.000-08:00

"If the creation of the conceptual networks that constitue each individual's map of reality is the product of constructive and interpetive activity, then it follows that no matter how lucidly and patiently teachers explain to their students, they cannot understand for their students." (Schifter and Fosnot, 1993 p.9)

-We use existing ideas/ideals to construct a new idea, developing in the process a network of connections between ideas. The more an idea's used and the more connections made, the better we understand.

Have you met Kiva yet??

2007-12-13T14:27:00.000-08:00

I loaned, a single mother of two, $25 dollars which helped her to grow her business. She's paid all my money back and now i'm loaning it to another woman. As altrusitic as sounds, it really is not. it is actually quite selfish, as i experience great PLEASURE everytime i see the measly $25 dollars make a small change in someones life.

I thought, i offer you a chance to feel great as well. Check out Kiva.org, help a person, and see what i mean.

woohoo!

Kiva
What We DoWe let you loan to the working poor
Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you've sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.

Memory

2007-12-12T22:52:00.001-08:00

I complained to Waki of my bad memory
So he directed me to cease from evil doing;
For indeed memory is a favor from God
And a favor of God is not given to he who sins.

pg 51, Instruction of the Student, Imam Al-Zarnuji

Snap!

2007-12-12T22:51:00.001-08:00

Abu Hanifa: “The purpose of learning is to act by it, while the purpose of action is to abandon the fleeting [things of life] for what lasts forever.”

The Water Cycle

2007-12-11T01:14:00.000-08:00

It is entirely possible that the water you drank for lunch was once used by a Prophet to wash his feet! Isn't the water cycle just amazing? Isn't water just magical?

Did you know, the same water that's nourished dinosaurs, quenched prophets, and satisfied millions of plants will also help you sustain your short life?

Yes, this might very well be common kowledge but i havent made the connection until today, so there. The earth is a closed system. wow. same waters been recylcing for so long. double wow. ok, i'll stop now.

Hadith Practice

2007-12-11T01:00:00.000-08:00

I need to buy this book!

Hadiths 1-60 of Zad al-Talibin
PDF File

Hadiths 1-60 of Zad al-Talibin “Provisions for the Seekers”
Published by White Thread Press (www.whitethreadpress.com)
Zamzam Academy summer Hadith Program

Sample Excerpt
PDF file

Prayer is the Commitment to Remember

2007-12-06T14:20:00.000-08:00

The great Spanish Muslim, Ibn Hazm, once wrote that the most consistent feature of human life is anxiety. Anxiety, he argued, traversed race, gender and social status, all religions, cultures and philosophical commitments.

In every society, those who are privileged are anxious about preserving, and perhaps augmenting what they have, be it wealth, health, good relationships or spiritual fulfillment. Those who are dispossessed, sickly, lonely or unfulfilled, on the other hand, are anxious about obtaining what they do not have.

All humans, however, instinctively recognize that something beyond their intelligence, good looks and social station will determine all of this. For all are aware that there are powerful people who have frail bodies or horrible relationships and that the unintelligent often acquire many times the riches of the intelligent.

Most of my private prayers and supplications (du'a) are part of my personal response to this cosmic anxiety, my way of tendering a cosmic "Thank You," on the one hand, and a cosmic "Please" on the other.

Beyond this, however, there is a canonical prayer (salah) that I offer at least seventeen times a day. This prayer reinforces the essence of my Islamic religiosity by reminding me that cosmic human anxiety is neither an accident nor an epiphenomenon, and that this basic feature of the human condition can never be overcome, but only prudently managed through a sincere relationship with God. This prayer also is the first chapter of the Qu'ran and it goes like this:

* Praise be to God, the Lord of being and becoming.
I recognize my contingency; every creature has a creator. And I recognize the grandeur of my Creator.
* The All-Merciful, the Mercy-Giving.
I have been given much that I have not earned. How do I repay this cosmic debt? There is still more that can be earned. What will I do to earn it?
*Master of the Day of Judgment.
It matters how I live my life and how I respond to my cosmic anxiety and my cosmic debt; for I shall have to account for it all. Have I repaid my cosmic debt?
* Only You do we worship and only Your ultimate aid do we seek.I seek Your favor, even in fulfilling my debt to You. For I know that by myself I am not always selfless, courageous, wise or even strong enough to do the right thing. I seek Your aid, however, not through my own designs but by trying to live up to Your expectations, by worshiping You.
* Show us the straight path.
Guide me to the right responses to my cosmic anxiety and my cosmic debt. And inspire me to live by these right responses.
*The path of those upon whom You have bestowed Your favor.
I recognize that it is a bounty to be guided. And I recognize that granting me this recognition is among Your greatest bounties.
* Not the path of those who incur Your wrath.
Those who seek to cover rather than confront their cosmic anxiety or their cosmic debt, who believe themselves to be self-sufficient, either out of ignorance or simply because they want to remain self-serving.
* Nor those who go astray.
Who recognize their cosmic anxiety and their cosmic debt but who delude themselves with the idea that they, rather than You, can define what will earn Your pleasure.

At least seventeen times a day, at intervals spreading from dawn to night, I offer this prayer, as mandated by my religion. In the midst of all the daily threats and boosts to my ego, perhaps the point of this repetition is to keep me from 'forgetting' my contingency and my cosmic debt.

Forgetfulness, however, will always be with me, lurking behind every little accomplishment and every failure. This is why I must ever seek refuge in the remembrance supplied by prayer.
And God knows best.

Sherman Jackson

The hikam...

2007-12-06T01:55:00.000-08:00

The branches of abasement only grow from the seeds of greed.

Nothing leads you on like illusion.
You are free when you despair of it.
You are a slave when you are eager for it.

Whoever does not advance to Allah by the tenderness of His goodness
is chained to Him by the fetters of trial.

Whoever is not grateful for blessings is asking for them to vanish.
Whoever is grateful for them ties them up with their own tether.

I Love This Man!

Separation...

2007-11-28T21:53:00.001-08:00

I don’t have time to blog anymore. I wish I did but I don’t. I don’t even have time to read or reflect, or even surf! :Sob: My day begins with the leftovers of the day before, and I can never seem to catch up. And that’s only after the first kid, sheesh. What no one warns you about is the aftermath – pregnancy is the easy part! That’s right. While pregnant you still have a free will – the will to sit on your arse if you please.

No siree, my day begins with fresh kicks in my ribs each morning. No matter what corner of the massive King Size Bed I move to – she finds me. She can’t crawl or walk yet she finds me. She kicks until I give up and give in. From that moment until the time she goes to bed at night, I have no time to myself. My world revolves around her needs.

As much as I sometimes want to hit myself with a frying pan (repeatedly), the minute I am away from her, a feeling of sadness enters my heart. As much as she annoys the crap out of me sometime, I just can’t picture my life without her. My life does not function without this person.

This ‘fear of separation’ is my biggest fear.

And this fear has clarified some higher truths for me…

1. Love is not just the result of our selfish desires but is sometimes indicative of something bigger than ourselves. Love is Divine. Love points to God.
2. Separation from the Divine, Our Creator, Our Lord, is what hell must be like.
3. I better start living my life in a way where Im not separated from that which I love…

May Allah swt remember us witho those who are meant to be remembered. Ameen.

Be a Star!

2007-09-12T22:41:00.001-07:00

Exceptional individuals are not born with extraordinary abilities. Like others they too have unique and special dispositions, though it is their actions - the way in which they deal with their circumstance- and not their predisposed personalities that make them outstanding.

Any one of us can be an exceptional human being, despite our short-comings, regarless of our given disposition, in spite of our environment -- only if we choose to apply ourselves...

Here's trying yet again...

Nice!!!

2007-08-24T09:09:00.000-07:00

Must See!

Metamorphosis

2007-08-13T13:06:00.000-07:00

I find it hard to digest that there is a soul inside this flesh; my daughter on the other hand can’t believe she is stuck inside her precious little body. As she begins to gain awareness of her hands and feet, the look of sheer amazement on her face is priceless. Her eyes expand in shock as she wiggles her toes -- probably wondering how the heck I ended up inside this body.

2003

2007-06-06T11:47:00.000-07:00

We spend most of our life struggling to create means/images that would make people around us love and revere us. Yet we forget that the people we meet everyday are placed there by a preordained decree. so when things dont go your way, it's not because you've been cursed but because your hindsight's become dull.

allahuma inni audhubika Ar-Rahman

Quotes to Note...

2007-06-06T11:43:00.000-07:00

When you do nothing at all, things have a way of finding themselves

You can burn books but you cant burn imagination

You see only what you want to see

The broken bond between heaven and earth can only mend by a prayer from a broken heart.

Your teeth hold your words, your brain remembers them.

Blessed are those whose own faults have preoccupied them from the
faults of the others,..." Imam suyuti

Another conversation from the past..

2007-06-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

1-23-2004

That's a very admirable quality; I, on the other hand, can’t seem to get my head out of my ... posterior. i think there are moments where i love for someone other than meself, but ahh then i put my conscious back to sleep.

and back to me. i dont exactly pose for arguments but i do let people develop their preemptive presuppositions as they deem fit. it aint my fault when my behavior doesnt fit into their finely crafted constructs that I get labeled, :insert your favorite label here: now, when I was a wee gal, I met this scholar who instead of being impressed, with my oh so creative imagination, was a wee bit turned off. He quite bluntly told me, to observe people in silence and first internalize what I know before I manifest it upon unsuspecting victims. Best piece of advice yet! Don’t ya love traditional shayks who smack your ego to death?

now, if you ever just sit and watch people, youll realize we're pretty funny. we live our lives like caged rats who have been trained to respond to various routines. even though we still manage to miracoulsy think with 'opposites.' we seem to have restricted ourselves to a very black and white (yes, just black AND white) interpretation that is rigid as well as ahistorical.

we seem to judge people according to our own beliefs or the beliefs of our adversaries. in other words, we only see through our own eyes or the eyes of our opponents. it's either this or that. nothing more. (hmmm, I should post this in girls and boys gone wild thread/ and ofcourse this idea too was picked from Mr. Jackson!)

hey wait, i havent spoken about myself or my views in the past 15 sec, so back to me. Now being a subjective human whos dependant on her Lawd's Will, i'm in the process of constantly re-evaluating my position and place in this oh-so-mean-world.

In my subjective happy world, ive
interpreted 'goodness,' 'purity,' 'nobility,' 'godliness,' and "other" virtues as abstract ideas that we humans attempt to internalize/humanize in our constant struggle. i, believe these ideals fluctuate in every body that has a beating heart, and these ideals manifest in different people of different creeds in various intervals. in other words, there is no guarantee that I, a muslim girl, will always remain in my current state based on the labels society has etched upon my forehead.

and so, again in my subjective struggle, seeing a lack of what i would call a reflection of submission to the Absolute Truth, i feel myself gravitating toward those who happen to exhibit some of the aforementioned "IDEALS."

like i stated in an earlier posting, i'm in love with the idea of love, not necessarily ARAGON. He just happens to be a vessel that carries the message.

now i dumped aragon for katsumoto, simply because, the later was more real and thus more believable in his embodiment of things characteristically virtuous. thus, the instant attraction. my departure from katsumoto fan club, however, was his ‘acceptance’ of suicide tactics, especially since they fell outside the boundary of ‘despair’ for which one can argue on individual bases. Anywho, In my subjective beliefs, life ends when God intends it not when I will it. All shame and honor comes from Him, as He uplifts and debases whom He wills. Katsumoto, believed himself so devoted to his cause, that his cause, transformed into his arse, causing him to end his life. (how we insult our ex? So sad) (I kid, I still love katsumoto!)

In walked this idea of Jesus, a person who supposedly devoted his life for what he believed to be the Message of God, a message of Love so pure, it made his personal pride and choice, irrelevant. Publicly humiliated, beaten senseless, and almost crucified on the cross, he still overcame the last temptation; a temptation of wonderment as to why God had forsaken him?

This modern Mel Gibson ideal happens to adhere very closely to what I would assume to be the qualities of an ideal personality: someone who is well-aware of God as well as his own position in the larger scheme of things. God, I can ramble on and on and on

And on. Hope that explains my LOOOOOOOOVE for James.
__________________

How the living may help the dead

2007-06-06T10:44:00.001-07:00

Praying for the dead, asking forgiveness for them, and giving charity on their behalf are some of the things God causes the dead in their graves to benefit from and be protected by. There are many hadiths about this, and many fine and virtuous people have witnessed it in their dreams . Sa'd ibn 'Ubada, may God be pleased with him, once said to the Messenger of God, may peace and blessings be upon him: 'My mother's soul departed suddenly, and had she been able to speak she would have given alms . Would it bring benefit to her if I did it on her behalf?' 'Yes!' he replied . So he dug a well (for people to take water from) and said: 'This is on behalf of Sa'd's mother. '
And another man said: 'O Messenger of God! My parents have died; is there anything left with which I may be good to them?' And he replied: 'There are four things: praying and asking forgiveness for them, carrying out their promises, being good to their friends, and giving proper attention to those kinship bonds which could have only be attended to by them. '
And the Prophet said, may peace and blessings be upon him: 'Were it not for the living the dead would have been doomed'; in other words, because of the prayers and requests for forgiveness and for mercy which they receive.
And he said, may blessings and peace be upon him: 'My Nation is a nation covered with mercy. Its members enter their graves with sins like unto the mountains, and leave their graves having been forgiven because the living have asked forgiveness for the dead. '
It is related that the gifts of alms, prayers, and Qur'anic recitation sent by the living to the dead reach them carried by the angels on plates of light, and adorned with silk handkerchiefs, and they say to them: 'This is a gift from so-and-so', and in this way they find joy and delight.
A dead man was once seen in a dream and, upon being questioned about his state, said that he had been greeted by an angel who attempted to burn his face with a flame held in his hand. But one of the living said: 'God have mercy on so-and-so!' -and the flame went out.
One of the greatest things which one may offer to the dead is to recite Qur'an and send on the reward for it . This is of great benefit and baraka. The Muslims have agreed on this everywhere throughout the ages, the majority of scholars and virtuous people have recommended it, and there are hadiths to confirm this. Although, these hadiths have weak chains of transmission, there is a principle, as the hadith scholar al-Suyuti (may God show him His mercy) has said, that: 'Weak hadiths may be acted upon when they indicate acts of goodness. ' And these are indeed acts of goodness.
All the Qur'an is blessed and beneficial, but the most beneficial thing to offer to the dead is Surat al-Ikhlas eleven times, and this has been seen in many blessed dreams . Each person should recite this noble sura the said number of times, either each night, each day, or more, or less, or even only on Thursday night, and offer this reward to his parents, teachers and all those who had rights over him.
He must not forget his dead ones when he prays, asks forgiveness, or gives alms, lest he in turn be forgotten after his death, for the one who remembers is remembered, and the one who forgets is forgotten . Benevolence goes ahead of you, and God allows not the reward of those who have done good to be wasted. ( 18:30 )

Visiting Graves
You should know that it is recommended to visit graves . The Messenger of God, may blessings and peace be upon him, permitted this after having at first forbidden it . It contains benefits both for the living visitor and the dead person who receives the visit . The Prophet said, may peace and blessings be upon him: 'Visit graves, for they remind you of death . ' And: 'I used to forbid you to visit graves, but now you should visit them . They render one able to do without the things of the world, and remind one of the Hereafter . ' He also said: 'No man visits the grave of his brother and sits by it but that he (the dead man) finds solace in this, having his spirit restored to him until the visitor departs . ' And he said: 'A dead (person) in his grave is never more comforted than when those that he loved in the world pay him a visit. '
When a visitor enters the cemetery or passes it by he should say: 'Peace be on you, O place of believers. We are granted respite until tomorrow. That which you were promised has come to you, and we will, God willing, rejoin you. You are our predecessors and we are your followers. I ask God to give us and you well-being. O God, forgive us and them!
It is recommended to visit the cemetery on Thursday night, Friday, Friday night until sunrise, and on Monday, for it is said---and this is supported by various narrations---that the spirits of the dead return to their graves at those times.
The visitor must ask for forgiveness and mercy for them, read whatever Qur'an he can and make over the reward to them; he should remember that soon he will go to the same end, and learn the lessons to be drawn from their condition.
When he visits the graves of his parents, relatives, or anyone else who had rights over him, he must sit with unhurried serenity, pray for them, and ask abundantly for forgiveness, for they rejoice at this, and are glad. When he visits the graves of righteous people he should pray in abundance, for prayers are answered at many such places, as has often been experienced. The tomb of Imam Musaal-Kazim, the son of Imam Ja'faral-Sadiq, is known in Baghdad has the 'Proven Medicine', that is, for prayers to be answered and worries to be relieved, and so is the tomb of Ma'ruf al-Karkhi, also in Baghdad. Some of the noble house of the 'Alawi Sayyids used to sit at the tomb of our master al-Faqih al-Muqaddam for such long periods, in the heat of the sun, that sweat could have been wrung from their clothes, while they, because of their profound concentration in prayer, were unaware of this. This is reported of Shaykh 'Abdallah ibn 'Ali and others.

Source: Imam 'Abdallah ibn'Al-awial-Haddad, Sabil al-iddikarwa 'li 'tibar bimay amurru bi'l insan min al-a'mar,( The Lives of Man), translated by Dr. Mostafa al-Badawi, The Quilliam Press, London, England, 1411/1991, p. 45-48

After

2007-05-27T09:54:00.001-07:00

Firstly,Why do we want our children to be perfect? Is your child perfect? Uh, no. But i do wish things will be perfect for her. Even then what is this obsession with perfection? What is with the transference of personal arrogance to this simple and pure Soul?
Secondly, being a parent or teacher doesn't excuse us from personal growth. As much as your child is dependant on you, you too are dependant on your child, for guidance, for self-reformation, for spiritual growth.
And lastly, how can you not believe in God, after holding a child in your hand. The love that you feel - that raw emotion - can't be human. Equally, how can you not feel the same emotion for all those who are weak and needy in the world...

We need to lift the veils of arrogance to see the true colors of our world, our children, and our personal realities.

Before

2007-05-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

Now that I’m about to become a parent, a mother, I seldom think about how I will raise this child. What values do I want her to acquire and how will i go about helping her attain them?

I thought to myself let me start at the beginning. I started this blog to take snaps of myself, and to collect random stuff I find exciting. I’ve started writing personal narratives from my childhood so I can give them to my child(ren) someday. Among them are some of my earliest memories, my most exciting moments, and things that have changed me in someway.

So far I’ve found ways to introduce myself to this new person but how do i find ways to remind this person of her origin? She took her earthly form in my womb and thus has become my responsibility, but what about her soul? What does it seek? How do I remind her that her life didn’t begin here and that home is not really home? (I realize I sound crazy and no im not part of some Astro-Cult).

The Pursuit of Happiness...

2007-04-11T15:19:00.000-07:00

I've written about this before and lately after watching so many programs on the topic, i felt like revisiting it. I remember the first time I read the Yusuf Ali translation, I couldn't believe how happy i was. I wanted to write to him not realizing he had passed on years ago. Then i went looking for answers but for the most part found very irritated and unhappy Muslims. I wondered why weren't these people happy? Happy because there was more to this world and we're all meant to be something more. That there was something, some Higher Power, just as eager for us to wake up, as we were to discover it.

Whenever i meet a Muslim, the first thing i look at is his or her state. Are they happy? Are they depressed? Are they angry? I mean, we've all met specimens who will start frothing at the mouth if they see you do something that doesn't jive with their chosen group. I look at these people and wonder what is it 'exactly' that's eating you... your anger can't be due to your love of Islam, because being in love makes a person happy and happy people don't shout at strangers.

I think, some people just dont know how to be happy. Most South Asians (as i know this group quite well) suffer from very low self-esteem. They determine their personal worth by how they are judged by the larger community. Being part of a group is more important than standing up for whats right. or rather, doing what feels right in the heart. they ignore their inner voice in order to please others, in the process negating their'self.' They stop pursuing happiness and instead focus on building a performance that might satisfy some of their audience but never brings them the satisfaction, the acceptance, their self really seeks.

This makes them angry. As long as they are with the 'in-group,' they feel somewhat 'worthy,' but as soon as they cross paths with someone who doesn't seem to care about 'group-think,' and is able to hold his own, they become angry. Perhaps its because in their presence they feel less worthy, unable to fill the void they've created for themselves for the most part of their life? Perhaps they feel cheated because they've given up so much of themselves and this happy person seem to be enjoying his life without having to sacrifice as much as them?

I've many faults and I try to better myself, but despite this im happy. I have countless reasons to be happy, we all do, and equally we all have the option to wake up happy or cranky each day of our life. I've met many people who see the countless faults in me, yet my shortcomings does not take away from their happiness, because that state only comes from within...

Mirror mirror on the wall

2007-03-21T12:54:00.000-07:00

I've decided that the most beautiful thing in this world is not a diamond or a pearl but the beating heart of an individual that is capable of understanding God. A mind that is capable of processing the attraction that exists between her and God. A body that kindly releases motivational inspiration to those who look for God.

Heaven must not be about hoarding money, women, and property. How can it be? How can material possessions make us happy there, when they don't help us here. Here where we exist within the confine of this measly body. The rich still seek therapy despite having all the luxuries that rot the soul. No, Heaven must be about being in the company of those WHO KNOW. There's nothing more pleasurable, more exciting, more satisfying than being in the company of one who understands...

Stereotyping the “Other.”

2007-03-20T00:17:00.000-07:00

(Excerpt from a conversation from 2003)

"Ever notice how we restrict images of the ‘other’ that support the dominant social ideology by concealing individual characteristics of members of a group? Is it fair to reduce the living data base we have present in those lands as authoritative and barbaric?

Insiders’ perspectives don’t serve as the ‘final’ authority but are simply informed through their privileged access as members of a group; by lived realties in the life of that group, etc… I can sit with a given hanafi sheikh, learn his perspective without pledging alliegence. I can even keep silent and simply observe and come back to my sketch board to purge personal thoughts. I doubt I will be stoned for such a heresy?

I’m not advocating the superiority of one over the other; rather the need for the western student to be more vigilant in tapping into various resources, to recognize that meanings represented in texts are not universal, to comprehend that knowledge making is not objective but socially constructed. In a nutshell, the modern western student forgets to ‘contextualize’ his own subjectivity and in turn behaves in exactly the same way as your given ‘tradionalist.’ By stereotyping the other, he proceeds to flash us his/her half-assed fatwas and expects us to digest them? We suddenly have threads on this message board questioning the validity of Quranic Verses?? I mean, I can understand if Sherman Jackson comes out with a “ I can kick yo arse and prove such and such’ given his level of research (ofcourse he would be more respectful as well) but I really cant understand when people with no viable research decide to not only reject well-established norms/ methods of transmission (in certain schools of thought at least) but also present their personal bias as objective.

>>you talked of being a good critic, but what's inherently wrong in being a bad critic in a non-authoratative sense?

Authority is not a bad thing. However, when one particular ideology renders a minority’s perspective invisible and at the same time stereotypes that group as the ‘other,’ you got yourself a problem. There will always be a struggle between the authority and the other, a very healthy phenomenon, in my opinion. But this process can become easily diseased when the latter’s laxness becomes the cause of the formers corruption, something like the ‘salafi phenomenon,’ or in this case as rightfully named by zilla, the bastard lost step brother of the salafi… (something like that)..."

Quotes to Note

2007-03-10T10:17:00.000-08:00

And Shaykh Ba, a West African scholar, said this about Islam:

The river is crystal clear.
Its water remains pure,
Sweet and unpolluted.
It reflects the color of the riverbed.

The Art Of Integration

The Secret...

2007-02-20T23:14:00.000-08:00

There is an Islam, a reality, no one seems to speak about. (At least no one i know personally). There is an Islam that speaks of unseen worlds filled with angels that are all around us, a heavenly assembly that watches over us, even as i write this.

Don't you sometime wonder, who are the angels that surround you; what must they be like? What do they tell each other when they change stations. Do they like me, do they think I'm a good person, do they pray for me? Or does my stench drive them away?

All those times, I've felt alone and lonely, do they quietly remind me of my various connections? Will i recognize them someday?

Will i recognize myself without this shell of a body. What do i look like without this body? Where does my soul ago when I'm asleep? What does my soul look like?

There are so many layers, so many mysteries, waiting to be solved. But we don't seem to care. We're so consumed with all things dense, that we don't have time to formulate thoughts. Thoughts that can turn into heartfelt prayers. Prayers that can mend the broken link between heaven and earth.

5's you should know:

2007-02-11T12:15:00.000-08:00

5 Pillars
1. Shahada
2. Salah
3. Sawm
4. Zakah
5. Hajj

5 Evaluations
1.Obligatory (Wajib)
2. Recommended (Mandub)
3. Neutral (Mustahab)
4. Disliked (Makruh)
5. Forbidden (Haraam)

5 Basic neseccaties/5 Ultimate objectives
1. Religion that makes sense
2. Preservation of life from hunger, disease, crime, starvation..., etc.
3. Preservation of intellect
4. Family
5. Economy

5 Maxims of Law
1. Things are judged by their objectives
2. Certainty will not be removed by doubt
3. Harm should be removed
4. Hardship shall bring alleviation
5. Good custom has legal weight

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The Shari`ah has come to observe three categories of people’s interests (Masalih), namely

Daruriyyat (necessities),
Hajiyyat (complementary),
and Tahsiniyyat (embellishments).

It is one of the objectives of Shari`ah to draw an equitable balance between the merits and demerits of a certain thing. One of the well known and agreed-upon set of rules in Shari`ah are the following:

Fending off harm takes priority over incurring a benefit, the lesser harm can be shouldered to fend off a greater one, the harm is to be waived, the harm can’t be waived by resorting to another harm, necessity knows no laws, the boundaries of necessity are to be clearly identified, one can bear an individual harm to fend off a public one, of the two evils one should choose the lesser one, the need is to take the same priority as necessity, hardships necessitate relaxing the law, and harm should not be neither inflicted nor reciprocated.

Wow! I am impressed...

2007-01-23T21:30:00.000-08:00

Toward an Adamic Education:

"If it has not been a fatalistic mentality of “this is the way things simply are,” then it has been our “weak theoretical foundations, simplistic interpretation, and intemperate application” of an Islamic pedagogy that has been the greatest challenge to Islamic schools in North America. The lack of a clearly articulated Islamic pedagogy and what that entails for both the purpose and practice of Islamic education within the modern West must be addressed with a sense of urgency.

[...]

We have chosen to adopt the term Adamic Education from Abdal Hakim Murad (T.J. Winter), as opposed to the commonly used term Islamic Education to illustrate the roots of an Islamic education and also its relevance to the greater discourse on education.Western epistemologies refer to the moment that Adam was sent from the heavens to spend the remainder of his life on earth as the great “Fall.” That single moment of ignorance where Adam ate from the forbidden tree and therefore earned himself the consequence of being sent to earth is understood in the Islamic epistemology as an ascent, not a fall. Islamically, Adam’s physical displacement from heaven to earth is understood as an ascent because spiritually he was raised from a state of ignorance to one of knowledge.

Through a process of education, Adam was raised in status in becoming Allah’s khalifa (vicegerent) on earth and the angels bowed to him. It is therefore this process of education and move from a state of disobedience to obedience that raised Adam in status to an “Adamic state”.

The process of becoming educated is not a forward motion toward things unknown, rather it is a search for knowledge that will bring an individual back toward their fitra (natural state of purity). “All education is a re-education – a reclamation” of a pure state of being again. It is a process of recognizing the magnanimity of the Creator– of His Oneness (Tawheed).

All forms of knowledge that bring an individual closer to that state of understanding are considered educative. There is no distinction, as Imam al-
Ghazzali notes, between knowledge that is considered secular or that which is considered religious.

Ahsan states in a beautiful metaphor that within Islam, all areas of knowledge are “like branches of a single tree rooted in the cognition and awareness of God.”

Learning is for the purpose of attaining a state of being, whether that is achieved through learning about photosynthesis or prayer, the intent is the same. Learning(ta’allum) is a form of worship (ibaada) that proclaims an individual’s slave hood(ubudiyyah) to the Creator. It is no different than fasting and prayer – because all of them are processes of returning and regaining what we have lost.

An Adamic Education therefore, alters the purpose of schooling entirely. It is about
“human transformation and not merely about the transmission of knowledge.” The
acquisition of knowledge as an act of worship makes learning into a sacred event.
Everything about the class is treated with a sense of reverence, dignity, and
austerity;“utterly unlike the modern educational experience.”

The Pedagogical Divide: Toward an Islamic Pedagogy
Nadeem Memon, PhD Candidate, OISE/UT
Qaiser Ahmad, M.Ed, OISE/UT (PDF File)

Quotes to Note

2007-01-13T14:01:00.000-08:00

The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence.
A. Bronson Alcott

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
William Arthur Ward

There is nothing more fruitful than ignorance aware of itself.
José Ortega y Gasset

If you plan for a year, plant a seed. If for ten years, plant a tree. If for a hundred years, teach the people.
Kuang Chung

What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches.
Karl Menninger

In the education of children there is nothing like alluring the interest and affection; otherwise you only make so many asses laden with books.
Michel de Montaigne

Teaching that impacts is not head to head, but heart to heart.
Howard G. Hendricks

The first idea that the child must acquire in order to be actively disciplined is that of the difference between good and evil; and the task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity.
María Montessori

The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions.
Anthony Jay

Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.
Edward De Bono 1933-, British Writer On Thinking Process

Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different.
Albert Szent Gyorgi

Creative thinking involves imagining familiar things in a new light, digging below the surface to find previously undetected patterns, and finding connections among unrelated phenomena.
Roger von Oech

Instruction of the student: The method of learning

2007-01-08T22:20:00.000-08:00

It is said, "He who knows himself knows his Lord." For one when realizes his own limitations, he knows more of the power of God, and he [learns] not to rely on himself and his own intellect. Instead, he places his trust in God and seeks the truth from Him. And those who rely on God, He suffices them and will guide them along the straight way.
Imam Al-zarnuji

Education... should be undertaken for the spiritual development of man, and with the aim of deepening his understanding of the world around him... and to use this understanding as a gateway to spiritual love and apprehension of God.
Ibn Sina

Progress is a not a forward motion but a move back toward our roots.
Martin Lings

God's mercy is such that every affliction is a stopper - it blocks a greater affliction.

2007-01-08T22:17:00.000-08:00

"...Along these lines, I'm thinking of a very famous story in the Masnavi, in which a farmer comes to Moses, one of the children of Israel. And he says, "Moses, would you please teach me the language of the animals?" He says, "Of course not! How do you know I even know the language of the animals?" Every day he comes back and pesters Moses. One day God says, "Teach him." So the next day this guy comes and Moses teaches him the language of the animals.

The man is so happy with himself. And he goes back and he's living his daily life. One day he hears the chicken, you know the hen saying to the rooster. "Well, too bad about the old goat here." And the rooster said, "What's going on?" "Oh, he's going to die. Can't you see?" The farmer takes the goat into town and he sells it, right? Sure enough, the next day he hears, the guy comes back, the guy who bought the goat. "Hey, your goat died on me." "It was perfectly health when you bought it."

A few days later. About a month later, you know. He was out in the barnyard again. He hears one of the sheep talking to another sheep. He says, "Well, too bad about the old horse. You know, his days are numbered. Look at him, you know. Not much time." So, he grabs the horse, takes the horse to the market. A week later, the buyer comes back. "What did you do? You sold me a sick horse!" "You looked at his teeth, you checked him out. You said what a fine specimen of horse flesh. How can you blame me? I know nothing. You must have fed him some bad food or something."

So, this goes on. The farmer starts getting very wealthy, I mean, relative to the other farmers he knows. He's doing very well. And then a year down the line he hears one of the cows talking to another. "Gee, too bad about the master." "What's wrong with the master?" "Oh can't you see? I don't think he has more than a week left to live."

And of course the farmer says, this can't be! He runs back to Moses. He says "Moses, save me." He says "What are you talking about?" "Moses, save me. I'm going to die. The cow is saying I'm going to die in a week. Don't you remember you taught me the language of animals?" Moses says, "What can I do?" "You're the one who taught me. You're the one that can save me." Moses says, "It's far, far too late for that. Don't you understand that every affliction you suffer prevents a greater affliction? If you had left that goat to die the first time, and just ignored it, you never would have gotten sick. Your lifespan would have lasted 150 years." Think about that.

What do you emanate to the world?

2006-12-17T11:53:00.000-08:00

A Sun’s inherent quality is that it gives of light. If I hid the sun underneath my bed it would still brighten up the entire room. If I placed a rose in the dirtiest bathroom in the world, it would still fill its surroundings with its fragrance. These objects carry something inherent in them that make them give off a ‘certain something,’ no matter what extraneous factors are placed on them.

So what is my inherent quality? How does my existence make someone else’s life just a little bit easier?

The first three months of my pregnancy put me into a new and unfamiliar territory. I unleashed a monster that lurked beneath the surface for many years yet was restrained for reasons still unknown to me. For the first time in my life, I felt physically, hormonally, and emotionally imbalanced. I was depressed, tired, and cranky. Mind you, I’ve been cranky before but not like this. I’ve been sick before but not like this. Not to toot my own horn but I’d never lost clarity until this moment in time. No matter what I’ve been through I’ve always firmly believed that everything in my life was significant and meaningful. Every moment was meant to produce something meaningful. But something happened during this period and I became a different person.

I don’t want to forget this person because it showed me; I can be something more, something better. This person reminded me that we’re all here to tell a story and that I want to be an excellent storyteller (someday) (like Brother Irving!). That we’re all here to emanate something and I want to emanate something beautiful to the world. I learned that my existence not only affects other people but also my fetus. I learned to be a little un-selfish. (Still working on it, it is very hard to not just think about myself).

The Etiquette of Disagreement

2006-12-01T09:59:00.000-08:00

The Etiquette of Disagreement
Dr Abdulhakim Jackson
Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies,
[...]
In the Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful. Peace be upon you, and The Mercy and Blessings of Allah.
[...]

Islamic Civics

My topic tonight is entitled "The Etiquette of Disagreement", and I think that sometimes the titles to things have everything to do with how they are understood. Some of us believe that a topic like "The Etiquette of Disagreement" is one of those topics that scholars and the ulamaa up in some ivory tower discuss and that it has very little to do with our everyday life, on the level of our everyday activities. What I want to propose to you tonight is that what we’re really talking about is a lesson in Islamic Civics. Where I come from in the United States public education is compulsory still in many states up until the age of sixteen. In some states its not compulsory but only because in those states they allow for private education, you can arrange for the education of your own child in your own home; but education is compulsory. Part of that education is what we call Civics (in some schools they call it Government while in other schools it is called Social Studies).

These are lessons that are designed to prepare students to grow up to be citizens; to live in a society in such a way that they will be productive. That they will be able to contribute to the society — they will be a positive addition to the society and that they will promote the interest of the society as defined by the society’s leaders. What I want to propose tonight is that we need to get back to Islamic Civics, of how we as Muslims can function as productive individuals in groups in society in such a way that we promote the interests of Islam. We further the integrity of the religion and that we support the furthering of our interests both in terms of our activities among ourselves and what we deliver to the rest of the world. Now I think it’s a forgone conclusion with all of those ayat that we have in the Quran that Allah (swt) has not asked, but commanded us as a community to love one another and to promote unity. And there are many ayat in the Quran just to name a few: "Those who divide up their religion and become groups unto themselves you have nothing to do with them Muhammad"; "And do not be like those who divided themselves up and differed among themselves after clear signs have come to them and these are the people whom will receive a grievous penalty."

The Jama‘ah
Allah (swt) says in another verse: "And hold fast to the rope of Allah all together and do not be divided and remember Allah’s bounty upon you when you were divided and He made you brothers out of His blessing to you". It is related on the authority of Abdullah ibn Masud, the famous companion, that he once said, "Being together as a jamaa’ah, being united as a jamaa’ah, this is the Hablullah (the Rope of Allah) that Allah is talking about in this verse", and he (ra) goes on to say that, "That which you do not like in the jamaa’ah is better than that which you love in your own little separate group." So being with the jamaa’ah is preferred over being in your own little separate group. This is all well and good, to talk about being a jamaa’ah, but what about the fact that there are people who have ideas that we don’t agree with. What about the fact that there are people who endorse notions that we believe to be haram, what about the fact that there are people who advocate doctrines that we believe to be antithetical to Islam, that we believe to be against Islam? How can we maintain a jamaa’ah with these kinds of ideas in our midst? And it’s here that we come to the whole point of Islamic Civics, and what all of us in this room, in fact all of us who say laa ilaaha illallah Muhamadu rasulullah, what all of us have to remember is that this Deen is not our personal property. This Deen is the Deen of Allah (swt). And it is supposed to be practiced as Allah (swt) has commanded us to practice it. And Allah has commanded us, not asked us, commanded us in many ayat to be united, to have love and compassion among us. We are going to differ in our interpretations. We are going to differ in what some of us hold to be priorities from what others hold to be priorities. How could that not be the case?

The Companions Differed

The companions themselves differed on their understandings of various things that the Prophet (s) said, or that the Prophet (s) did. We are no better than the companions. We are human beings just like them and so we will differ. But the point becomes how do we manage our differences? How do we differ in such a way that while our ideas may differ and be separate, our hearts are united and we recognise each other as brothers and sisters involved in one mission? How do we do that? This is the Etiquette of Disagreement that I am talking about as Islamic Civics.

Rules of Discussion

One of our main problems, if I might be permitted to say so, because I did not come all the way to Australia to add to the problems of the Muslims in Australia. I came inshaAllah, if anything, to lesson those problems and I asked Allah (swt) to grant me the taufiq that will enable me to do that inshaAllah. By my humble estimation one of the reasons that we often times fall into disagreement with each other, the kind of disagreement that leads to hatred, distrust, mutual accusations, is that we attempt to go into discussions of issues with no rules of discussion. We’re playing without rules of interpretation, and this is one of the things that separates us from our pious ancestors. They had rules for interpretation.

We all know that the Prophet (s) passed away and his companions succeeded him and went to the various parts of the Muslim world where they began to encounter realities that were unknown to the Arabian Peninsula. All kinds of new people started coming into Islam. We have to remember that during the Prophet’s (s) lifetime Syria was not an Arab country. It became Arab after the Muslims went their with Islam — they were not forced to be Arabs, nor forced to be Muslims, Islam won the hearts of the Syrians. Egypt was not an Arab country, it became an Arab country, it became a Muslim country. Likewise with Iran, North Africa — you have all these people coming into Islam from different backgrounds and histories. How was it that they were able to maintain a sense of unity?

We all know that Imam Ash-Shafi’i (r) came on the scene in the 2nd century of Islam, and Imam Ash-Shafi’i wrote an important book called Ar-Risalah; and this was the book that started the Muslims to develop rules of engagement. Rules of Engagement — that is to say brother you have a hadith and I have a hadith. Okay, what does the hadith say. The hadith says ‘do this’, what does ‘do’ mean in Arabic? ‘Do this’ is what they call in Arabic seeghat al amr. It’s a command. Imam Ash-Shafi’i sat down and said command can mean a number of things - it could mean that something is waajib (you must do it) or that something is mandoob (you should do it) or that something is mubaah (you may do it). And so now when Muslims come together and they discuss commands, if one of them says this means you have to do it and the other one says you should do it, they both know now what that command could mean; it could mean you must, or you should. And he who says that it means you must, has he corrupted the hadith of the rasul? No, this is consistent with what commands could mean, and vice versa. And this was the way in which the Muslims were able to accommodate all these different people and it kept them talking about Islam among themselves and debating the issues without dividing into sects and schisms.

This is the first lesson that we need to learn. And in these Islamic schools that we have, we need to put into the curriculum this Islamic Civics because often times especially among young people, we have young people who go home and read Quran and with the best of intentions they come back and they have an opinion and they don’t know that there may be another way to understand that ayah, and they say therefore that anybody who does not see it as I see it, he must not be serious about deen. Therefore we fall into schism and distrust and we become disunited and can’t get very much done. So one of the main things we need to do, and I’m going to plead from this podium tonight with the ulama of Australia, that they get together and develop a program for Rules of Engagement among the Muslims. The Muslims used to call this Usool-ul-Fiqh. How not only to understand, but how to discuss our issues? If we don’t have rules of engagement there’s only going to be one opinion I’m going to recognise, you know what that opinion is? It’s my opinion and anybody who disagrees with that opinion I’m not going to recognise. I’m going to accuse them of being either insincere or not wanting to accept the truth. So this is one of the first things we need to do.

The Jama‘ah and ‘Ismah

The second thing we need to do in this Islamic Civics, is recognise that in Islam there is no church. We don’t have a pope or vatican. In Islam we have what is known as ‘ismah or infallibility — that the Prophet (s) had a perfect understanding of the revelation and this is why any time we go to the Prophet (s) and we asked him a question and he gives us an answer we know that is a correct answer. Because the Prophet (s) is ma’sum min al khata (protected from error in interpretation). This is one of the basic characteristics of being a prophet. All of the prophets were ma’sumeen min al khata. But what happens after the Prophet (s) dies? What happens to this ‘ismah? Who gets this ‘ismah? Do I get it? Do you get it? According to Ahlis Sunnah wal Jamaa’ah it is the jamaa’ah who gets this ‘ismah. The Prophet (s) is reported to have said that his community (ummah) will not universally agree on an error. In other words everything his (s) community universally agrees upon is true, and therefore is binding on every believer; but that which his (s) community does not agree upon is subject to debate and there are many things that the community disagrees upon. And where the community disagrees no one party can accuse the other party of being in error in the absolute sense. The most that they can do is what the Imam Ash-Shafi’i did. Al-Imam Ash-Shafi’i said, "I believe my opinion is right with the possibility that it is wrong and I believe the opinion of those who disagree with me is wrong with the possibility that it is right." This is the spirit with which the Muslim approaches those issues on which there is no consensus in the community.

When we try to make everything in Islam a matter of consensus, we are going against the way of our pious ancestors no matter what we call ourselves. This is a fact, and another fact is that our pious ancestors differed on more than they agreed on. There was one scholar named ibn Al-Mundhir who died in the year 310H. Ibn Al-Mundhir wrote a book called Kitabul-Ijmaa’, this was a book that included everything that the ulamaa agreed upon up until his death. This book is only about 250 pages big. The rest was all subject to ongoing debate, ongoing discussion. But the Muslims then had rules for discussion and that is why they could discuss and continue to debate and even change their minds without it leading to hatred and distrust and someone accusing the other of not being a pious Muslim.

They came in fact to Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal who used to say that if your nose bleeds then you have to renew your wudu. Imam Malik said that if your nose bleeds you do not have to renew your wudu. So they went to Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and they said what if you were praying behind somebody and they have a nose bleed and they don’t renew there wudu, do you continue to pray behind them? And Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal said, "How can I refuse to pray behind somebody like Imam Malik? I have daleel (evidence), he has daleel; I have solid daleel, he has solid daleel." The companions of the Prophet (s) took different things from him and went out to the various parts of the Muslim world and they taught those different things in those various parts. All of them got what they taught from the Prophet (s) so Imam Malik has his point of view and Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal has his point of view. This was the spirit of our pious ancestors, and this is what we have to get back to.

Get Priorities Straight

One of the things that we have to do if we’re going to have this Islamic Civics, this Etiquette of Disagreement, is that we are going to have to get our priorities straight. We are going to have to understand that there are some things in Islam that are not subject to any compromise. I’m reminding you in this regard that the Prophet (s) in the 9th year of the Hijra (Makkah was conquered in the 8th year) went back to Madina and in that year a whole bunch of tribes came to Madina to pledge their allegiance to the Prophet, to accept Islam. There was one tribe by the name of Bani Thaqeef from Taif, and they came to Prophet (s) and said that they did not want to make salah. The Prophet (s) said to them there is no good in any religion that does not have salah. They then said that they wanted to keep our idols. The Prophet (s) told them: "No, you are going to get rid of those idols now." They said that if they were to destroy the idols their people would go bizirk. The Prophet (s) said that he would send somebody to break the idols for them. And then they said they did not want to fight any jihad. The Prophet (s) said okay. Then they said that they like women and wine. The Prophet (s) said that these things are forbidden. Then they said that they didn’t want to pay any zakat. The Prophet (s) said you’ll pay. What is the point here? When they said "we want to keep our idols" what did the Prophet (s) say? "You are going to get rid of those idols now" — cause this is a violation of Tawhid and this is something we cannot compromise on but when they said "we don’t want to fight any jihad" what did the Prophet (s) say? He (s) is reported to have said: "We’ll work with/on that". Did he (s) give everything the same priority? No he (s) didn’t.

Allah (swt) doesn’t give everything the same priority. "Do you make giving the pilgrims water and taking care of the Ka’ba like somebody who believes in Allah and the Last Day and fights in the path of Allah", these things are not equal. Wallahi (By Allah) sometimes we take a brother who says laa ilaaha illallah Muhammadu rasullallah and then he doesn’t have a beard and we treat him like he is a kaafir, subhanallah! What priority does this have? We know the hadith of rasullallah (s), he said on the Day of Judgement there’s one man who took a card written on it Laa illaha illallah, on one side of the scale, put all his other bad deeds on the other side of the scale and what happened? This card outweighed all the other deeds. This is not my words, this is the word of the Prophet (s), whether we like it or not, this is the deen that the Prophet (s) taught us. And he taught us that for a reason.

This is the last chance that humanity has for salvation. There are over one billion Muslims in the world today, and they come from all different kinds of backgrounds, with all different kinds of histories, with all different kinds of problems. We are very aware of what’s going on in Palestine and we see the carnage and it disgusts us. It hurts us and makes us angry at ourselves that we are so weak that we can’t do anything. But let me tell you something brothers and sisters, there are Muslims in this world who are starving and whose situation is so bad, that they don’t have a television to watch what’s going on in Palestine. We have people who have all kinds of different realities confronting them, and they have different timetables. If we are going to remain one ummah we going to have to learn how to accommodate each other. That means getting the essentials straight and agreeing to continue to work on those things that are non-essentials.

There is a hadith of the Prophet (s) in Sahih Muslim, Shaikh ul Islam Ibn Taymiya talks about this hadith in some detail. A man at the time of the Prophet (s) used to drink wine and would get caught and was whipped. He would drink again and be whipped again. One day they caught him drunk again and brought him before the Prophet (s) and after punishing began to curse him. Do you know what the Prophet (s) said to them? He (s) said: "Do not curse him because he loves Allah and the Prophet." There are weak Believers and strong Believers and not all Believers are strong. This does not mean that they are not Believers. And this is what the Prophet (s) has taught us. If we continue to act in the way that the Prophet (s) taught us to act toward our brothers and our sisters may be next year, five years or ten years from now they will evolve into a much better Muslim. And the Prophet (s) said, "Gentleness and kindness was never a part of anything except that it made it beautiful, and harshness was never a part of anything except that it made it ugly." This is our model, our teacher, our uswah hasanah and this is what we are going to have to learn if we are going to get rid of this ‘adaawa wal baghdaa that is among us as an ummah and we have to know this is a curse. When Allah (swt) talks about al ‘adaawa wal baghdaa in the Quran who does He talk about? He talks about ahlul kitab for things that they did that contravened the revelation as a punishment for them. So let us not look at our division and blame somebody else. This is a problem of this ummah as a whole. And we must get back to an etiquette of disagreement if we are to overcome this.

Trying to make Mustahab Waajib

Another reason that sometimes we fall into needless fights and schisms is that we dispute about things that are either mustahab or makruh and we try to make the mustahab wajib. Or we try to make the makruh haram. And then we go on fighting about these things. In Islam the ulama, not Abdulhakim Jackson’s Islam from America, agree there are five rulings in Islam. These are haram, makruh, mubah, mustahab, wajib, and most of our disagreements come in these two areas of makruh and mustahab. What does wajib mean? It means that if you do it Allah will reward you, if you don’t do it He will punish you. Haram means that if you do it Allah will punish and you if you don’t do it He will reward you. Mustahab means that if you do it Allah will reward you and if you don’t do He won’t do anything to you. Makruh means that if you do it Allah will not punish you but if you don’t He will reward you.

The two rak’aat before Fajr is mustahab. A brother just accepted Islam or a sister married to a Muslim man all her life but just came back to Islam recently and they come to the masjid for Fajr and do not pray the two rak’aat of Fajr. What do I say to them? Do I start accusing/abusing them? Why should I since the two rak’aat are mustahab! Give that person time to evolve and develop. What did the Prophet (s) say to Bani Thaqeef about jihad, he (s) said we’ll work on this jihad — Omar (ra) went bizirk, he could not understand the Prophet’s (s) response. The Prophet (s) said to Omar (ra) they will come around — they will accept it eventually. After the Prophet’s (s) death a number of tribes in Arabia left Islam; one of the tribes who did not leave Islam was Bani Thaqeef. Those same people who just a few years earlier who said they did not want to fight any jihad. Do you see the wisdom of the Prophet (s). And he said: "I know that there will come out of these people some who will defend Islam and who will take it to the horizons."

A Matter of Education

Why are we going to get into a fight over how to position the hands during salaah and forget the fact that I am praying despite having my hands on my chest or by my sides. Which is more important, the fact that I’m praying or the fact that I’m not praying the way you’re used to? This is part of our problem and a big part of the problem is a matter of education. And this is why in our Islamic schools we must get back to our Islamic Civics because if we don’t we will be repeating the same old song over and over again. If we teach our children this now, then by the time they are young men and women they will know better. If we can put aside all these kind of minor arguments then we have time and energy and love to put into our real issues — building a future for our youth, making our society a place in which our veiled women can walk with a sense of pride. Getting into society and taking it back from the people who want to direct people toward the path to hell. That’s what we could do, but not if we’re sitting around arguing over things that we don’t need to argue over, and this is a matter of education.

This is even more important in a place like Australia than it is in Lebanon or Syria or Pakistan. This is so because in Australia you’ll have Muslims from all over the world and all these people saw one Islam all their lives. Now they come to Australia and they see other Muslims doing things differently, so now they’re going to have to show who is the "right Muslim".

I respect all ulamaa, whether I agree with them or not; and the only person who doesn’t respect an ‘alim is a jahil — he doesn’t know what knowledge is all about. Ibn Taymiya said that part of our problem is that many of our ulamaa don’t teach the people that there is more than one way of doing things. Instead they leave the people to think that there is only one way of doing things and therefore whenever they see someone doing something different they think the person is involved in the biggest bid’ah (innovation) that entered planet earth. And this is a problem. Ibn Taymiya (r) said, (from kitab Risalat al ulfah baina al Muslimeen) not only should the ulamaa teach their people that there is more than one way of doing things they should even model that from time to time.

The prophet (s) said that his ummah will not agree on an error. He (s) did not say that you will never make a mistake, or that I will never make a mistake, we make mistakes all the time, he said the whole ummah is not going to make a mistake. This is something that we need to remember. We need to come back to the sunnah of the Prophet (s) in Islamic Civics — how to live together. In Spain they used to say, man aslama faqad tahadara, meaning whoever becomes a Muslim acquires hadaarah (civilisation), the ability to live with each other. To know that in this room nobody is ma’sum (infallible) and in the absence of the Prophet (s), who was ma‘sum, we have no choice but to continue to talk about these differences.

Issues that are Clear

Let’s get something straight. The Prophet (s) has spoken and in some areas he has spoken very clearly. If he (s) has spoken clearly then the ummah will know that. The ummah will not disagree on it. This is why we don’t find any ‘aalim who says that you don’t have to pray for example on a Tuesday afternoon. Any ‘aalim who says riba (usury) is halal is wrong, it is haram! Stealing is haram, zakat is fard — there is no disagreement on these issues.

But there are many things that the Prophet (s) said that are subject to interpretation and we learned this from the companions. We all know the famous story of the Prophet (s) when he told the companions (ra); "There is no prayer to be offered until you reach the camp of Bani Quraizah." Some of the companions said what he meant was to hurry up and get to Bani Quraizah because you don’t want the salat time to be missed. The other companions said no that’s not what he meant, he meant don’t make salat until you get to Bani Quraizah. So one group made salat on time while the other group prayed when they got to Bani Quraizah (after the time of Asr had elapsed). When this incident reached the Prophet (s) he did not rebuke either of them. Both groups took the Prophet’s (s) words and with complete integrity, not trying to undermine his (s) mission, not trying to get out of what they were commanded to do, but with the best of intentions trying to fulfill their duty to obey the Prophet (s) — both will get their reward. These were the companions of Rasullallah (s). Are we better than they are? Subhanallah, this is where our problem is. That is what we have to get back to Islamic Civics.

Levels of Disagreement

There is one other area that I want to touch upon because sometimes a lot of the poison in our discussion comes from the fact that we’re not even clear on what we’re differing about. There are at least three levels that we can disagree on.

1. The level of revelation: Is this ayah from the Quran or is this hadith sahih can we accept it?

2. The level of interpretation: After accepting that an ayah is from Allah or a hadith is from Rasulullah, what is our interpretation of it?

3. The level of application: Sometimes when we agree on the levels of revelation and interpretation, we might disagree on the level of application. For example, during the time of the Prophet (s) their was a group who were known as al mu’allafatul qulub — either new Muslims or even non-Muslims whom the Prophet (s) was attempting to open up some psychological space. These were people who were not opposed to Islam but were afraid that when they became Muslim their lives would change in ways that they were uncertain about. So what the Prophet (s) wanted to do was soothe their hearts by givinge them gifts, money, camels and all kinds of things. And once they got these they might consider Islam and think it not bad. After the Prophet (s) died and Umar (ra) became caliph (Abu Bakr was only caliph for 2 years) one of the tribes that the Prophet used to give money to came to Umar and requested the money that the Prophet used to give to them. Umar responded by saying that: "I’ll give you this (sword) and that’s all you’re going to get." The companions questioned Umar saying that the Prophet (s) used to do that. Umar replied that the Prophet (s) used to do that in our time of need, "I know why he did it I was there. He (s) did it when we needed to — when we were weak and afraid of the tribes around Arabia. Now there is no longer any cause to do this, I will give them nothing but this (sword). " The question arises, did Umar accept the ayah? Yes! Did Umar accept the Prophet (s) interpretation of the ayah? Yes! Where did Umar differ? With the application of this ayah.

What are not Daleels (Proofs)

"Astagfirullah," is not a daleel. Anger is not a daleel. Yelling is not a daleel. Even takfeer (calling someone a kaafir) is not a daleel. What do I mean by this? Sometimes when I can’t convince you about my point of view, rather than give you daleel I yell and scream. I start out with "astaghfirallah hil atheem", this is not daleel. What is needed is proof from Quran, sunnah, qiyas, and ijmaa’. Let us not terrorise our brothers and sisters.

Things we should not be arguing about

If we’re arguing about an issue of tauhid/shirk, or whether the Prophet (s) always spoke the truth or not, or whether there is a Day of Judgement or not — then we have a problem. We are not supposed to be arguing about these essential things — we’re supposed to be agreeing on them. But if we’re talking about something that is not fundamental, then either I can convince or I can’t and let us leave it at that.

The Ignorant and the Hypocrite

We have to get to know our people because sometimes a person may hold a view, and they may hold that view because they are ignorant. Let us try to tell the difference between someone who is arrogant, who has no regard for the truth and who doesn’t care whether you are right or not, they just want to hold on to their opinion - that’s one kind of person. Then there is another kind of person who if you convince him he may see your point of view. So we should be careful about holding everybody who makes a mistake as a person who rejects Quran and Sunnah. He might just have made a mistake.

Ibn Taymiyyah (r) said that many people who hold wrong ideas may be believing wrong minded, erring Muslims (Mumin mukhti, daal ‘an ba’di ma ja’a bihi rasullullah). Or he may be munaafiqun zindeeq, a hypocrite who wants to hide behind fancy words and doesn’t really believe in Allah and the Last Day. Therefore, we have know the differences between people in order for us to get back to Islamic Civics, inshaAllah.

Transcribed by Sr. Faiza Abdullatif
The Etiquette of Disagreement

Benefits of Tribulation...?

2006-11-30T10:37:00.000-08:00

I came to a realization the other day. I think God wants most of us to be exceptional spiritual beings, but most of us just want to be below average Neanderthals. While God wants to uplift us we just want to mop and compare ourselves to the pomp and glitter of those who are themselves hollow.

We can look back at the low points of our lives and feel sorry for ourselves; or we can feel lucky that God deemed us worthy for such trials. Can you imagine the Prophet (saw) sitting down with his peeps and complaining about how he was humiliated at the hands of children who pelted him with rocks while others in his family were enjoying wealth and power? What was it that made the Prophet (saw) forgive and forget those who wronged him? What made him pray for those who humiliated him at every given point?

Perhaps, he was someone who knew God wanted him to be Exceptional.

Opening into the Tongue

2006-11-30T09:21:00.000-08:00

"One of the branches of the heart channel directly connects with the tongue. So physiologically the tongue has a close relationship with the heart. The qi and the heart blood all flow up to the tongue in order to assist its normal physiological functions. If there is a pathological change in the heart, it will be reflected in the changes of the tongue. For example, an insufficient supply of heart blood may be manifested by pale tongue proper; heart fire flaring up is reflected by red tongue proper, or even by ulcers of the tongue; blood stagnation in the vessels in presented by a purple tongue or purpura; pathogenic heat invading the pericardium or pathogenic phlegm obstructing the heart orifice, will produce coma, delirium, and stiffness of the tongue. Thus it is said, "The heart opens to the tongue," or "The tongue is the sprout of the heart."

Traditional Chinese Medicine

Read This: RUMI’S PATH OF REALIZATION

2006-11-16T09:55:00.000-08:00

"...The point I want to make, then, is that once we look deeply into Rumi’s teachings and get beyond the sentimentalities that are too often presented in his name, we will see that he has a rather harsh message for modern man. He is saying that not only the general public, but also the experts, scientists, specialists, and scholars, who are supposed to know what they are talking about, are in fact happily singing the song, khar biraft u khar biraft u khar biraft. The donkeys of all of us have been sold, and we are being entertained by the proceeds. We revel in our taqlīd, singing songs that we don’t understand. We imagine that we know so much more than our benighted ancestors. We no longer grasp the significance of our own embodiment. We live in bāṭil. Not only do we fail to see the ḥaqq of the world and our own souls, but we even deny that anything at all can have a ḥaqq. We are satisfied with the information fed to us by schools, governments, and the media. We accept all our knowledge on the basis of hearsay, faith, and blind imitation. Our only attempt at taḥqīq is to prefer some sources over other sources (let’s say, the The Guardian over the tabloids). We are completely unaware that we are muqallids—not imitators of the prophets and saints, but of other imitators like ourselves. It is only a matter of time before we wake up and begin to lament, daw sad la‘nat bar īn taqlīd bād—“two hundred curses on that imitation!”

The goal of Rumi’s path of realization is to know the ḥaqq of one’s own selfhood and thereby to know the ḥaqq of God, society, and the world. It is to know these with a certainty that bubbles up from the source of all knowledge, the God-given intelligence that lies at the root of the soul.

I conclude with two quotations that suggest the nature of the path of taḥqīq. The first is from Rumi’s Fīhi mī fīhi. He is talking about the knowledge of the experts.

The worthy scholars of the time split hairs in the sciences. They have gained utmost knowledge and total comprehension of things that have nothing to do with them. What is important and closer to them than anything else is their own selfhood, but this they do not know.[iii]

The second quotation is from the Maqālāt or “sayings” of Rumi’s companion, Shams i Tabrīzī.

These people study in the madrasahs because, they think, “We’ll become teachers, we’ll run madrasahs.” They say, “You must do good deeds.” They talk of such things in these assemblies so that they can gain positions.

Why do you study knowledge for the sake of worldly mouthfuls? This rope is for you to come out of the well, not for you to come out of this well and go into some other well.

You must dedicate yourself to knowing this: Who am I? What substance am I? Why have I come? Where am I going? From whence is my root? At this moment what am I doing? Toward what have I turned my face."

RUMI’S PATH OF REALIZATION
William C. Chittick

Atikah & Sukayna

2006-11-16T09:37:00.000-08:00

Atikah bint Nafil
The Sahabiyat by Jameelah Jones

During the early years of Islam, women encouraged their husbands to go forward for the cause of Islam. These women, like their men, were courageous, strong and thoroughly ready to give all for the sake of truth. The Sahabiyat (female companions of the Prophet - sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) had personalities which cannot be scoffed at. Here is a story of one such early women of Islam.

Atikah bint Amr ibn Nafil was one of the most beautiful women of Quraysh. She married AbdurRahman ibn Abu Bakr, who was extremely fearful of Allah, handsome and considerate of his parents. AbdurRahman was very much in love with Atikah. One day his father passed by and visited him in his home. When he saw how taken his son was with Atikah, he advised him to divorce her, as she had run away with his reason and overcome his senses. AbdurRahman told his father that he was not able to do this. His father said, "I endure you to do so!" Since AbdurRahman was not humanly able to oppose his father, he divorced his wife. However, after the divorce, he became extremely unhappy and even stopped eating and drinking. Abu Bakr went to him one day, but his son didn't even notice him. He realized that his son was totally devastated by the divorce. AbdurRahman was lying in the sun reciting the following: "I swear by Allah that I will never forget you as long as the sun rises, and as long as the ring-necked dove coos. I cannot imagine one such as me divorcing one like her, nor one like her being divorced without any reason. She is chaste, religious, and noble. She has a balanced personality and a logical mind." After hearing this, Abu Bakr advised his son to take her back. AbdurRahman obeyed his father, and they were reunited. Atikah remained with him until he was killed by an arrow while out with the Prophet -sallallahu alahi wasallam- on the day of Ta'if.

Atikah later married Umar during his Khilafah. Their union ended with his death at the hands of an assassin. Some time passed, then Az-Zubayr ibn Al-Awwam proposed to her and subsequently married her.

It was Atikah's custom to leave the house so that she could pray in the mosque. Az-Zubayr was possessive. It upset him to see her leaving the house to pray in the mosque. He appealed to her to stop, but she saw no reason to give up praying in the mosque in which she had prayed behind behind the Prophet -sallallahu alaihi wasallam, Abu Bakr, and Umar. Az-Zubayr knew that he should not forbid her from praying in the Prophet's mosque, because he knew the hadith in which the Prophet -sallallahu alaihi wasallam had said, "Do not forbid Allah's female slaves (from attending) His mosque".

Then Az-Zubayr was martyred, and she subsequently married Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr, who was killed in Egypt. At this point, she decided that she would never marry anyone else after him, for fear that he too would be martyred. She once said, "If I were to marry all the inhabitants of the earth, they would all be killed." She was given the affectionate name "Zawjah Ash-Shuhada" - the wife of the martyrs.

===============================================================

Sukayna (raa) One of the notable women in Islamic history is Sukayna (raa), the daughter of Husayn (raa), grandson of the Prophet (saaw).

"Some women tried to resist the changes imposed on them after the death of the Prophet. They claimed the right to go out barza (unveiled), a word that they added to the Lisan al-‘Arab dictionary: "A barza woman is one who does not hide her face and does not lower her head." And the dictionary adds that a barza woman is one who "is seen by people and who receives visitors at home" – men, obviously. A barza woman is also a woman who has "sound judgement." A barz man or woman is someone "known for their ‘aql [reasoning]." Who are they, these Muslim women who have resisted the hijab? The most famous was Sukayna, one of the great-granddaughters of the Prophet through his daughter Fatima, the wife of ‘Ali, the famous ‘Ali, the ill-fated fourth orthodox caliph who abandoned power to Mu’awiya and was assassinated by the first Muslim political terrorist. His sons’ fates were as tragic as his own, and Sukayna was present at the killing of her father at Karbala. That tragedy partly explains her revolt against political, oppressive, despotic Islam and against everything that hinders the individual’s freedom – including the hijab.

Sukayna was born in year 49 of the Hejira (about AD 671). She was celebrated for her beauty, for what the Arabs call beauty – an explosive mixture of physical attractiveness, critical intelligence, and caustic wit. The most powerful men debated with her; caliphs and princes proposed marriage to her, which she disdained for political reasons. Nevertheless, she ended marrying five, some say six, husbands. She quarreled with some of them, made passionate declarations of love to others, brought one to court for infidelity, and never pledged ta’a (obedience, the key principle of Muslim marriage) to any of them. In her marriage contracts she stipulated that she would not obey her husband, but would do as she pleased, and that she did not acknowledge that her husband had the right to practice polygyny. All this was the result of her interest in political affairs and poetry. She continued to receive visits from poets and, despite her several marriages, to attend the meetings of the Qurashi tribal council, the equivalent of today’s democratic municipal councils. Her personality has fascinated the historians, who have devoted pages and pages, sometimes whole biographies, to her. Her character was deeply affected by history’s harsh reality – particularly the killing of her father, Husayn Ibn ‘Ali, at Karbala, one of the most outrageous massacres in Muslim political history. Husayn was a man of peace who had declared to Mu’awiya in a written contract his decision to renounce the caliphate, provided he be allowed to live in safety with his family. A poet, he celebrated the women he adored: Rabab, his wife, and Sukayna, his daughter. After the death of Mu’awiya, when he refused to swear allegiance to Mu’awiya’s son, Husayn was killed at Karbala in the midst of his family, including Sukayna. It happened on the Day of Ashura (the Day of Atonement), October 10, AD 680. All her life Sukayna harboured feelings of contempt, which she never hesitated to express, for the Umayyad dynasty and its bloody methods. She attacked the dynasty in the mosques and insulted its governors and representatives every time she had the opportunity, even arranging occasions for this purpose.

She made one of her husbands sign a marriage contract that officially specified her right to nushuz, that rebellion against marital control that so tormented the fuqaha. She claimed the right to be nashiz, and paraded it, like her beauty and her talent, to assert the importance and vitality of women in the Arab tradition. Admiring and respectful, the historians delight in evoking her family dramas – for instance, the case that she brought against one of her husbands who had violated the rule of monogamy that she had imposed on him in the marriage contract. Dumbfounded by the conditions in the contract, the judge nevertheless was obliged to hear the case, with his own wife attending this trial of the century and the caliph sending an emissary to keep him au courant with the course of the trial.

Fatima Mernissi,"The Veil and The Male Elite." (Pg 191-193)

Reality Check?

2006-10-20T11:35:00.000-07:00

We live in an artificial world with artificial means. It’s as if were almost part of a fictious world that is at odds with the real world. We live in cities that blot out the skies yet bedazzle casinos and ad campaigns. We live in secluded homes and watch reality through the eyes of the few who decide what is moral or immoral for us. We’ve built artificial cities over deserts all the while forgetting that the desert itself was a city full of people at some time. Ask a child and he won’t know how his food grows. Ask an adult and he won’t know how many artificial toxins are in the fruit he’s eating.

Does living in this artificial world affect our thinking-- our being? Do we make dumb assertions because of our environment? Is it because we’re so consumed with our slavery to consumption that we don’t have time to think in real terms? Can we pretend to understand people who are still in touch with nature, who haven’t destroyed nature to build a fake sense of reality?

Google Time!

2006-10-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

Beautiful Recitation/Video of Sura Rahman

Beautiful Recitation of Qasida Burda
(Does anyone know who recites this?)

The Mouse and the Camel

2006-09-29T15:07:00.000-07:00

Funny how situations rarely change throughout history. I wonder who was being checked by Rumi here. Did he too live in a time where mere rats...erm mice... wanted to lead camels?
-------------------------------------------------------------
The Mouse and the Camel

A mouse caught hold of a camel's lead rope
in his two forelegs and walked off with it,
imitating the camel drivers.

The camel went along,
letting the mouse feel heroic.
"Enjoy yourself,"
he thought, " I have something to teach you, presently."

They came to the edge of a great river.
The mouse was dumbfounded.

Step forward into the river. You are my leader.
Don't stop here."
"I'm afraid of being drowned."

The camel walked into the water. "It's only just about the knee."
"Your knee! Your knee
is a hundred times over my head!"

"Well, maybe you shouldn't
be leading a camel, Stay with those like yourself.
A Mouse has nothing really to say to a camel."

"Would you help me get across?"

You are not a prophet, but go humble on the way of the prophets,
and you can arrive where they are. Don't try to steer the boat.
don't open up a shop by yourself. Listen. Keep silent.
you are not God's mouthpiece. Try to be an ear,and if you do speak, ask for explanations.

The source of your arrogance and anger is your lust
and the rootedness of that is in your habits.

Someone who makes habit of eating clay
gets made when you try to keep him from it.
Being a leader can also be a poisonous habit,
so that when someone questions your authority,
you think, "He's trying to take over."
You may respond courteously, but inside you rage.

Always check your inner state
with the Lord of your heart.
Copper doesn't know it copper,
until its change to gold.

Your loving doesn't know its majesty
until it knows its helplessness.
...

The Essential Rumi, p. 142-144
Translated by Coleman Barks

The Hikam of Ibn 'Ata'llah

2006-09-28T11:42:00.000-07:00

I. A feeling of discouragement when you slip up
is a sure sign that you put your faith in deeds.

Your desire to withdraw from everything
when Allah has involved you in the world of means
is a hidden appetite.

Your desire for involvement with the world of means
when Allah has withdrawn you from it
is a fall from high aspiration.

Aspiration which rushes on ahead
cannot break through the walls of destiny.

Give yourself a rest from managing!
When Someone Else is doing it for you,
don't you start doing it for yourself!

Your striving for what is absolutely guaranteed to you
and your laxness in what is required of you
are evidence that your inner eye is dull.

If you make intense supplication
and the timing of the answer is delayed,
do not despair of it.
His reply to you is guaranteed;
but in the way He chooses,
not the way you choose,
and at the moment He desires,
not the moment you desire.

If something that is promised does not happen
even though the time for it is set,
do not doubt the promise!
If you do, that will dim your inner eye
and put out the light of your secret.

When He opens a way for you and makes Himself known to you,
then do not worry about your lack of deeds.
He only opened the way for you
because He desired to make Himself known to you.
Do you not see that while He grants gnosis of Himself to you,
you have only deeds to offer Him?
What He brings you -
What you bring Him -
What a difference there is between them!

Different states have different outcomes.
This accounts for the variety of types of action.

Actions are merely propped-up shapes.
Their life-breath is the presence of the secret of sincerity in them.

Bury your existence in the earth of obscurity.
If something sprouts before it is buried,
its fruits will never ripen.

Withdraw the heart into the arena of reflection
- nothing helps the heart more than that!
[...]
The Hikam of Ibn 'Ata'llah

NAWAWI FOUNDATION PAPERS

2006-08-25T04:27:00.000-07:00

Innovation & Creativity in Islam

This article examines two fundamental concepts essential to the dynamic application of Islam: bid‘a (innovation) and ijtihad (critical thinking for solutions to new problems). Both concepts are meant to preserve continuity with Islam’s original sources while renewing the religion’s vitality as a dynamic faith. Correct understanding of bid‘a and ijtihad is an essential element of Islamic literacy, the basic understanding of Islam that all members of the Muslim community must have. Bid‘a serves as a regulatory mechanism for the elaboration of the religious law but is not meant to be an obstructive force, impeding new ideas and silencing open discourse. Bid‘a has different shades of meaning and is not always negative; it applies equally to innovations that are obligatory, recommended, or merely neutral. Ijtihad, on the other hand, is the creative dimension of Islamic law. The obligation to perform it falls on each Muslim community in the context of its particular time and place. Ijtihad is not solely an obligation of scholars; it also is incumbent on the Muslim rank and file, who are required to think critically about which scholars to follow.
Read Full Article
PDF file

Islam & the Cultural Imperative

This article addresses the fundamental need for American Muslims - among the most promising, wealthiest and educated Muslim minorities in history - to consciously establish a new, unique cultural identity. To lay down roots and survive, Islam must reflect the good in America’s diverse races and ethnicities. Historically, Islamic jurists have upheld the Prophet’s legal precedent for respecting non-Arabs’ ethnic and cultural differences as long as they did not contravene his teaching. Islam’s spread and triumphant past reflects this glorious global culture. Like a crystal clear river, Islam and sacred law are pure but colorless, until they reflect the Chinese, African, & other bedrock over which they flow.
Read Full Article
PDF file

Mercy, The Stamp of Creation

This paper examines the role of mercy in the Islamic tradition and eternal salvation, and its imprint on all affairs of the universe. Although Islam is often proclaimed as the ‘religion of peace,’ theologically, it is more accurate to refer to it as the ‘religion of mercy.’ God has designated mercy as his primary relation to the universe and sent his greatest prophet, Muhammad, as its emissary. Following this, Muslims are commanded to be vanguards of mercy to the world in fostering benefit and averting harm. Islam enjoins a healthy and spiritually alive heart and teaches a law of universal reciprocity by which God shows mercy to the merciful and withholds it from the unmerciful.
Read Full Article
PDF file

One God, Many Names

This paper addresses the primordial origin of the divine names of God in order to establish the equivalency of the Biblical ‘God’ to Islam’s ‘Allah’ and the need for American Muslims to embrace both. While Muslims affirm that they worship the ‘God of Abraham,’ recently America’s religious right has denied this common ground. This point is aided by English-speaking Muslims’ avoidance of the word ‘God,’ due to an erroneous assumption that ‘Allah’ alone carries legitimacy.
Read Full Article
PDF file

What the Bleep Do We Know?

2006-08-10T08:44:00.000-07:00

I'm amazed by how little we know as a human race. I'm amazed that we're as arrogant as we are despite the fact that we know so little. We still don't know where electrons go when they disappear and reappear, we still don't know if at our most basic level we're particles or waves, we still don't know who or what is the observer that determines the location of the particle? We still don't know how the first heart beat is initiated.

Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?
Science, believe it or not, doesn't have the answers either. There are only theories. But that's not my point of interest. I'm more interested in the way we think and learn.

What makes us, a small carbon unit, to believe we're capable enough, that we're conscious enough to construct and understand the multi-layered realities of this vast and for the most part, unseen universe? (Dark Matter anyone?) We don't know who or what we are yet we claim to understand GOD -- the Ultimate Observer.

A crazy lady who claims to channel a 4,000 year old spirit actually said something very profound in the documentary "What the bleep do we know"? (A must see! You'll find the work of Dr. Emoto alongside theories of Quantum Mechanics and How to control your dumb self among other interesting models, which you might or might not agree on), when she said, "The height of arrogance is the height of control of those who create God in their own image!"

I don't know exactly what she was implying but I know what that means for me and my synaptic connections, mainly that, we come to understand what we deem reality through our measly and imperfect minds. Minds that are incapable of understanding Dark Matter yet arrogant enough to claim to understand God. We impart images of God through our arrogant and incomplete understanding making the lot that's actually seeking Him, sick to their stomach.

I don't know what the heck I really am, where I come from, or where im going, (that is, if im a spiritual being trying to be human, not a human being trying to be spiritual, as eloquently quoted by Sheikh Abdullah Adhami), then how can I claim to be the only one who understands the meaning of life and further dictate how everyone should live according to my feeble model of reality.

Perhaps reality is best designed through the minds of many rather than just one. Perhaps the suggestion of loving the Prophet (saw) (and enlightened beings) is so that we humble ourselves and realize that we're incapable of understanding the meaning of reality without Divine help and each other. The Prophet (saw) was endowed with an excellent character, an existence that perhaps understood God more than any of us losers. Enlightened beings too understand reality in a way unfamiliar to our learning models and thus it is crucial to tap into as many minds, as many ways of thinking one is capable of. That is, if one already understands how she learns to learn.

More on this later...

Meanwhile, munch on the following:

"The smallest units of matter are, in fact, not physical objects in the
ordinary sense of the word; they are forms, structures or in Plato's
sense, Ideas, which can be unambiguously spoken of only in the
language of mathematics."
Werner Heisenberg

"We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but
nature exposed to our method of questioning."
Werner Heisenberg

"Observation plays a decisive role in the event and . . . the reality
varies, depending upon whether we observe it or not."
Werner Heisenberg
__________________________________________________________________

The Particle Adventure: An interactive tour of fundamental particles and forces
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
The Particle Adventure

Watch it free on Google. (Large file; some sexual content; viewer discreation is advised)
What the Bleep Do We Know?

Double Split Experiment - What is Matter?

Can words affect physical reality?

2006-08-03T14:18:00.000-07:00

There was an Eastern Doctor who believed in the healing power of words. In addition to his regular practice he devoted a lot of time praying and motivating his patients. He would sit for hours with those of his patients suffering from grave brain injuries.

One fine day another brilliant surgeon, an expert in his field, heard about this weird practice of the foreign doctor. He decided to confront his mumbo jumbo and to put him in his place for showing such blatant disrespect to the fine profession of medicine!

Sure enough the next day the surgeon found the Eastern Doctor with one of his patients, whispering sweet words of encouragement. He walked up to him and said,

“You know this will not help a bit. You are wasting your time!”

No response.

“How can you call yourself a doctor and believe that mere words can aid the condition of a patient”? The surgeon tried one more time.

“Basta**!” came the first response.

“What?!?” asked the surgeon in disbelief.

“A**hole!” came the second response.

“How dare you speak to me like that, I will kill you? Do you know who are speaking with, I will destroy you, you Son of a Beech!!!” screamed the surgeon.

“Stop right there.” said the Eastern Doctor calmly.

“HUH? What? How dare you tell me to …” panted still a very angry surgeon.

“I’ve only said two words to you and suddenly your heart rate has increased, your body is producing sweat, and you are out of breath. Surely, words must have some mysterious power?”

SNAP!!!
-------------------------------------------------------------
I can’t remember where I originally heard or read this story. Re-heard it last night from a friend. If you know the source let me know.

Can thoughts and feelings affect physical reality?

2006-07-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

"...each word has its own particular vibration, and therefore its own particular energy."

Dr. Masaru Emoto was born in Japan and is a graduate of the Yokohama Municipal University and the Open International University as a Doctor of Alternative Medicine. His photographs were first featured in his self-published books Messages from Water 1 and 2. The Hidden Messages in Water was first published in Japan, with over 400,000 copies sold internationally.

Love and Gratitude

What has put Dr. Emoto at the forefront of the study of water is his proof that thoughts and feelings affect physical reality. By producing different focused intentions through written and spoken words and music and literally presenting it to the same water samples, the water appears to "change its expression".

You Make Me Sick
Essentially, Dr. Emoto captured water's 'expressions.' He developed a technique using a very powerful microscope in a very cold room along with high-speed photography, to photograph newly formed crystals of frozen water samples. Not all water samples crystallize however. Water samples from extremely polluted rivers directly seem to express the 'state' the water is in.

Dr. Masaru Emoto discovered that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific, concentrated thoughts are directed toward them. He found that water from clear springs and water that has been exposed to loving words shows brilliant, complex, and colorful snowflake patterns. In contrast, polluted water, or water exposed to negative thoughts, forms incomplete, asymmetrical patterns with dull colors.

Power of Prayer

The implications of this research create a new awareness of how we can positively impact the earth and our personal health. The success of his books outside Japan has been remarkable. Dr. Emoto has been called to lecture around the world as a result and has conducted live experiments both in Japan and Europe as well as in the US to show how indeed our thoughts, attitudes, and emotions as humans deeply impact the environment.

__________________________________________________
Dr. Masaru Emoto
Hado Prject
Researcher Reveals Mysteries Of Water

[I wonder if there has been replication done by other scientists. Were there control groups? And are there similar studies and/or publications in reputable scientific journals. Who knows? But this is still cool!]

The Maharishi Effect

2006-07-25T13:07:00.000-07:00

Is there something wrong with the prayers of Muslims these days or are the prayers actually averting greater harm at some level. I believe in the power of collective prayer. I believe!!! Interesting study, isn't it?

The Maharishi Effect
In 1960, Maharishi predicted that one percent of a population practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique would produce measurable improvements in the quality of life for the whole population.

Effects of Group Practice of the Transcendental Meditation Program on Preventing Violent Crime in Washington, DC:
Results of the National Demonstration Project,
June–July 1993

Every action is based on intention...

2006-07-12T17:27:00.000-07:00

Paralyzed man masters thought control
Brain power used to control computer, operate robotic limb

Updated: 3:27 p.m. ET July 12, 2006
LONDON - A paralyzed man using a new brain sensor has been able to move a computer cursor, open e-mail and control a robotic device simply by thinking about doing it, a team of scientists said Wednesday.

They believe the BrainGate sensor, which involves implanting electrodes in the brain, could offer new hope to people paralyzed by injuries or illnesses.

“This is the first step in an ongoing clinical trial of a device that is encouraging for its potential to help people with paralysis,” Dr. Leigh Hochberg of Massachusetts General Hospital said in an interview.

The 25-year-old man, who suffered paralysis of all four limbs three years earlier, completed tasks such as moving a cursor on a screen and controlling a robotic arm.

He is the first of four patients with spinal cord injuries, muscular dystrophy, stroke or motor neuron disease testing the brain-to-movement system developed by Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems Inc. in Masschusetts.

“This is the dawn of major neurotechnology, where the ability to take signals out of the brain has taken a big step forward. We have the ability to put signals into the brain, but getting signals out is a real challenge. I think this represents a landmark event,” said John Donoghue, a professor at Brown University and the chief scientific officer of Cyberkinetics.

The scientists implanted a tiny silicon chip with 100 electrodes into an area of the brain responsible for movement. The activity of the cells was recorded and sent to a computer, which translated the commands and enabled the patient to move and control the external device.

“This part of the brain, the motor cortex, which usually sends its signals down the spinal cord and out to the limbs to control movement, can still be used by this participant to control an external device, even after years had gone by since his spinal cord injury,” added Hochberg, a co-author of the study published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Although it is not the first time brain activity has been used to control a cursor, Stephen Scott of Queen’s University in Ontario said it advances the technology.

“This research suggests that implanted prosthetics are a viable approach for assisting severely impaired individuals to communicate and interact with the environment,” he said in a commentary in the journal.

In a separate study, researchers from Stanford University Schools of Medicine and Engineering described a faster way to process signals from the brain to control a computer or prosthetic device.

“Our research is starting to show that, from a performance perspective, this type of prosthetic system is clinically viable,” Stephen Ryu, an assistant professor of neurosurgery at Stanford, said in a statement.

Copyright 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

Its like rraaiiin.

2006-06-30T09:34:00.000-07:00

The world is six things: its something you eat, its something you drink, its something you wear, its something you ride, its something you smell, or its something you marry.
The highest thing that you will eat in this world is the vomit of bees. (honey)
The highest thing that you will drink is water [and every animal drinks that].
The highest thing that you will wear is the excretion of a worm. (silk)
The highest thing that you will smell is the mucus of a gazelle. (musk)
The highest thing that you will ride is a horse (upon which men are killed),
and the thing you will derive pleasure from your marriage is the meeting place of where you urinate.

So don't get depressed.

- attributed to Hazret Ali (ra)

Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.

2006-06-23T22:44:00.000-07:00

Why do we assume we are complete? That we are a finished form, evovled to the fullest, in our short stay on Earth. Who knows we just might be in the larva stage within an egg shell. Perhaps we're feeding on deeds (good or bad) in this world because that will help us become who we really are meant to be. The egg shell is penetrated only through death. and our real self leaves this body and prepares itself for the next stage?

Sounds magical? But its so hard to grasp because i know nothing else. I know i exist as long as my body is alive and once it stops functioning -- i'm no more. my accomplishments, my power, my loved ones are gone.

Perhaps I've invested "myself" in the wrong stock. Perhaps if i explored my real self within, maybe just maybe, im more than just flesh. i know what the greedy flesh wants but what about the rest of me (if there is more to me)?

Who am I and what the heck do I really want?

I like my internet friends, snort.

2006-06-19T15:34:00.000-07:00

As nerdy and as freaky as it sounds, some of the best human beings ive met -- i met from the internet. In case, you freaks happen to be in New York in July or in Houston in December, dont try to contact me. Ok fine, contact me. Lets do all the things YOU WANT.

much love,
nisa.

I'm away

2006-05-19T16:52:00.000-07:00

Will be back in June...

Peace.

Don't cry for me Argentina...

2006-05-09T11:05:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, I came home to find my computer crashed. I was shocked! But more importantly I was sad for having lost all the pictures, notes, files, and links from the past few years. Why oh why didn’t I back up my hard-drive?

I thought I would be angry but im a bit indifferent at this point, given I’ve been watching people helplessly dance around death for the past few weeks. I dont know how doctors do it. whew.

Anywho, my situation reminded me of Mr.Ghazali's story:

Ghazali and the Robbers
Author Unknown

Ghazali, the renowned Muslim scholar, was born in Tus, a small village near Mashhad. He lived in the fifth century hijrah.

In those days, students wishing to acquire higher knowledge of Islam travelled to Nishapur, which boasted several centres of learning and many teachers of repute. Ghazall, after completing his preliminary education at home, arrived in Nishapur to pursue further studies. He was brilliant and was soon acclaimed by his tutors as the most studious and painstaking student. In order not to forget any finer points of erudition, he formed the habit of noting down all that he heard and learnt from his teachers. And then he meticulously rewrote them under various headings and chapters.

He treasured these notes as dearly as his life, or perhaps more.
Years later, he decided to return to his village. He tied all his prepared notes into a neat bundle and set forth in the company of a caravan. On the way, they were held up by a gang of highway thieves who robbed each traveller of all his valuables. And then it was Ghazali's turn. They searched him thoroughly, snatching away all that they wanted, and then laid hands on the tied bundle of notes.

"Take all that you want, but please do not touch this bundle," Ghazali pleaded. And the waylayers thought that there must be something very precious hidden in the bundle which Ghazali was trying to save.

So they untied the bundle and ransacked the pages. What did they find? Nothing but a few written papers.

They asked: "What are these? Of what use are they?"

"Well, they may be of no use to you, but they are of great use to me," Ghazali answered.

"But of what use are they?" the robbers insisted.

"These are the fruits of my labour. If you destroy them, I am also ruinously destroyed.

All the years of my attainment go down the drain," Ghazali replied.

"So whatever you know is in here, isn't it?" one of them said.

"Yes," Ghazali replied.

"Well, knowledge confined in a few papers, vulnerable to theft, is no knowledge at all.

Go and think about it and about yourself"

This casual but pungent remark by a commoner shook Ghazali to the core. He realised that he had studied as a parrot, jotted down all that he learned and crammed in into his mind. He found that he knew more, but he thought less. If he wanted to be a true student and a good scholar, he had to assimilate knowledge, think, ponder, deduce and then form his own judgement.

He set out seriously to learn the way he should, and became one of the greatest ulema in Islam. But in his advanced age, when he summarised his achievements, he said:

"The best counsel and admonition which changed my thinking, came to me from a highway robber."

On how to read... this blog/other people/ the world...

2006-05-09T10:34:00.000-07:00

"Schema theory explains how our previous experiences, knowledge, emotions, and understandings affect what and how we learn (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Schema is the background knowledge and experience readers bring to the text. Good readers draw on prior knowledge and experience to help them understand what they are reading and are thus able to use that knowledge to make connections. Struggling readers often move directly through a text without stopping to consider whether the text makes sense based on their own background knowledge, or whether their knowledge can be used to help them understand confusing or challenging materials. By teaching students how to connect to text they are able to better understand what they are reading (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). Accessing prior knowledge and experiences is a good starting place when teaching strategies because every student has experiences, knowledge, opinions, and emotions that they can draw upon.

Keene and Zimmerman (1997) concluded that students comprehend better when they make different kinds of connections:

Text-to-self
Text-to-text
Text-to-world

Text-to-self connections are highly personal connections that a reader makes between a piece of reading material and the reader’s own experiences or life. An example of a text-to-self connection might be, "This story reminds me of a vacation we took to my grandfather’s farm."

Sometimes when reading, readers are reminded of other things that they have read, other books by the same author, stories from a similar genre, or perhaps on the same topic. These types of connections are text-to-text connections. Readers gain insight during reading by thinking about how the information they are reading connects to other familiar text. “This character has the same problem that I read about in a story last year,” would be an example of a text-to-text connection.

Text-to-world connections are the larger connections that a reader brings to a reading situation. We all have ideas about how the world works that goes far beyond our own personal experiences. We learn about things through television, movies, magazines, and newspapers. Often it is the text-to-world connections that teachers are trying to enhance when they teach lessons in science, social studies, and literature. An example of a text-to-world connection would be when a reader says, "I saw a program on television that talked about things described in this article."

Cris Tovani (2000) offers reasons why connecting to text helps readers:

It helps readers understand how characters feel and the motivation behind their actions.
It helps readers have a clearer picture in their head as they read thus making the reader more engaged.
It keeps the reader from becoming bored while reading.
It sets a purpose for reading and keeps the reader focused.
Readers can see how other readers connected to the reading.
It forces readers to become actively involved.
It helps readers remember what they have read and ask questions about the text.

How to Use the Strategy:
To effectively use this strategy, teachers should spend time modeling for students how to make meaningful connections. The easiest connection to teach is text-to-self. Teachers should model text-to-self connections initially with selections that are relatively close to the student's personal experiences. A key phrase that prompts text-to-self connections is, "this reminds me of...." Next, teachers should model how to make text-to-text connections. Sometimes when we read, we are reminded of other texts we have read. Encourage students to consider the variety of texts they have experienced which will help them understand the new selection. Finally, teachers should model how to make text-to-world connections. When teachers suspect that students may lack the ability to make meaningful connections, classroom instruction will be necessary to bridge the gap between reading experiences and author assumptions. Building the necessary background knowledge is a crucial means for providing text-to-world support and may be used to pre-empt reading failure. Harvey and Goudvis (2000) caution that merely making connections is not sufficient. Students may make tangential connections that can distract them from the text. Throughout instruction, students need to be challenged to analyze how their connections are contributing to their understanding of the text. Text connections should lead to text comprehension.

Below are some examples of connecting statements for students to use as a reference or teachers can use them as prompts for classroom discussion.

This part reminds me of....
I felt like...(character) when I....
If that happened to me I would....
This book reminds me of...(another text) because....
I can relate to...(part of text) because one time....
Something similar happened to me when....

Below are some examples of questions that can be used to facilitate student connections:

Text-to-self:
What does this remind me of in my life?
What is this similar to in my life?
How is this different from my life?
Has something like this ever happened to me?
How does this relate to my life?
What were my feelings when I read this?

Text-to-text:What does this remind me of in another book I’ve read?
How is this text similar to other things I’ve read?
How is this different from other books I’ve read?
Have I read about something like this before?

Text-to-world:What does this remind me of in the real world?
How is this text similar to things that happen in the real world?
How is this different from things that happen in the real world?
How did that part relate to the world around me?"

courtesy of: Making Connections

Schema theory of learning

2006-05-09T10:21:00.000-07:00

"All human beings possess categorical rules or scripts that they use to interpret the world. New information is processed according to how it fits into these rules, called schema. These schema can be used not only to interpret but also to predict situation occurring in our environment. Think, for example, of a situation where you were able to finish another person’s thoughts, or when someone asked you to pass that "thingamabob." Schema Theorists suggest that you used your schema to predict what you conversation partner was going to say and to correctly interpret "thingamabob" as the hammer needed to nail something into the wall.

Information that does not fit into these schema may not be comprehended, or may not be comprehended correctly. This is the reason why readers have a difficult time comprehending a text on a subject they are not familiar with even if the person comprehends the meaning of the individual words in the passage. If the waiter in a restaurant, for example, asked you if you would prefer to sing, you may have a difficult time interpreting what he was asking and why, since singing is not something that patrons in a restaurant normally do. However, if you had been to the restaurant in the past and knew that it was frequented by opera students who liked to entertain the clouds, you would have incorporated that information into your schema and not be confused when the waiter asked if you’d prefer to sing.

In contrast to Ausubel’s Meaningful Receptive Learning Theory, the learner in schema theory actively builds schema and revises them in light on new information. Each individual’s schema is unique and depended on that individual’s experiences and cognitive processes.

Ausubel postulated a hierarchical organization of knowledge where the learner more or less attached new knowledge to the existing hierarchy. In this representation, memory is driven by structure as well as meaning. Knowledge in Schema Theory, however, is not necessarily stored hierarchically. In fact, it is meaning-driven and probably represented propositionally, and these networks of propositions are actively constructed by the learner. For example, when we are asked to recall a story that we were told, we are able to reconstruct the meaning of the story, but usually not the exact sentences– or even often the exact order– that we told. We have remembered the story by actively constructing a meaningful representation of the story in our memory..."

Schema theory
Sharon Alayne Widmayer

The Ratib of Imam Al Haddad

2006-05-06T15:40:00.000-07:00

Translations:

1. The Ratib of Imam Al Haddad (pdf file)
2. The Ratib of Imam Al Haddad

Ratib al-Haddad is a Zikr (additional voluntary invocation) to be recited every night after Magrib or Salât al-'Ishâ. It is a collection of Surahs and verses from the Holy Qur'an Kareem as well as the Kalimaat (declarations of belief), Tasbeehaat (praise of Allah Ta'ala) and Duas (invocations) which the beloved Prophet Muhammad Mustafa Sallallahu alaihi as Sallam recommended in his blessed sayings or Hadith Shareef.

Wisdom isn't yours or mine.

2006-05-06T15:30:00.000-07:00

"bahadur shah zafar writes to his beloved/shaikh:

main ne puuchhaa kyaa huaa vo aap kaa husn-o-shabaab
haNs ke bolaa vo sanam shaan-e-Khudaa thii main na thaa

i enquired 'what happened to your beauty and youthfulness'?
laughingly, he said, oh dear, that was the splendour of God, not me."

Aasim

You were created to adore God

2006-05-04T21:52:00.000-07:00

Love (mahaba) is the highest religious virtue in Islam. Imam Ghazali said that it is the highest maqam or spiritual station. It is so because trust, zhud (doing without), fear, and hope are stations of this world and so long as you are in this world these stations are relevant, but once you die they can no longer serve you. Love is eternal because love is the reason you were created. You were created to adore God. That’s why in Latin the word adore which is used for worship in English is also a word for love, adoration. You were created to worship God, in other words, to love Him because you can’t truly adore something or worship something that you don’t love. If you are worshipping out of fear, like Imam A1-Ghazali says, it’s not the highest level of worship, but its lowest.

Hamza Yusuf

I was born to die.

2006-05-04T15:53:00.000-07:00

People mock religion but in times of tribulation it is the believers whose mind and bodies are repaired with their hearts.

This past week has brought a rollercoaster of emotions and unrest into my consciousness, which isn’t exactly a bad thing but it is uncomfortable. For the past few years, I’ve done quite well with personal conflicts and found myself at peace with my self and my surroundings. I mind my own business, I do what I deem correct, and I try my best to cater to those around me.

I, however, have never made an effort to discuss my beliefs with those of my friends and relatives who don’t know much about Islam (or those who don’t care to know); mainly because I would never want to force another human being into discussing something they weren’t interested in. That somehow the way I am would serve enough proof of my inclinations and beliefs. I was wrong.

The past week has made me realize that I not only need to work on myself but that I need to engage more with those around me. I need to talk about life, meaning, goals, and death. I should not shy away from discussing my views for they might benefit someone else. Yes, I can take care of me but I don’t know how to take care of other people. What good is knowledge or understanding if it can’t be of use to those we love?

This past week I found myself surrounded by people who wanted me to pray with them and for them. How wrong was I to assume that they didn’t believe in God. Yes, they said they didn’t believe in religion but that’s when they were happy. They were drunk on happiness; but what was wrong with me. Since when did I take ‘drunk’ people seriously?

Of course I prayed with everyone else. And I asked for prayers just liked them. But I felt so inadequate and guilty. I felt like a fraud. Why couldn’t I have explained some of my beliefs before this calamity hit them? Why had I not made an effort?

I saw people in despair. I saw them without hope.

I could taste their pain yet I didn’t know how to comfort them. Didn’t know how to explain that “tribulations” are a blessing in disguise; that death is only the beginning; that God Loves us more than we love Him; and that we should make our hearts content with God’s decree. How to say all of this in an out of context vacuum?

When my father passed away, I was sad. In fact, I was heartbroken. But I never for a moment despaired of God’s Mercy. I understood that he had returned home; his test was complete; and that I too was born to die. And perhaps by God’s Mercy I will see him again.

I recall feeling pain but not like the pain I’ve felt this week. I wish I could transfer some of the peace I feel in my heart to those who are in pain, right now.

Learn from my mistakes and please take a moment everyday to say something good to your loved ones, or to pray for someone in pain, for it not only helps them but it also helps to cleanse our hearts.

May God Forgive us and show Mercy on us, For He is the Best to Forgive and the Best to Show Mercy.

Whose Dream Is this?

2006-05-04T01:00:00.000-07:00

Chuang Tzu, a Chinese poet and philosopher, once has a wonderful dream. As he lay comfortably in his bed, he dreamed that he was a butterfly dancing from one flower to another, tasting sweet nector. Drifting with the light summer breezes, he blissfully fluttered with other rainbow-colored butterflies.

Suddenly, he woke up. Finding himself sitting on his own bed, he realized that he had been dreaming.

"The dream seemed so real," he thought. He looked about his crude cottage and sleepily wondered, "Well am I a man who has been dreaming that he a butterfly? Or am I a butterfly who is now dreaming that his is a man?

"Wisdom Tales"
Heather Forest

Quotes to Note:

2006-05-04T00:39:00.000-07:00

Dezhen

"A key thing, however, may be to understand what 'difference' actually is, if that makes sense. That there are many varying levels of "Muslim", from the non-practising peeps who have even the tiniest spark of faith in their heart, to those who walk around chewing on wood all day etc. That these things, and whatever in-between, is still within the bounds of Islam; though some are in a better position than others, doctrinally."

"Regardless of levels of understanding and practise, regardless of current or past "sins", there is a place for everyone within the community, at some level, which enriches our capability to grow."

Aasim

"I'm becoming convinced (and it is difficult to think this) that most of the ungodliness in the world (and perhaps manifested within ourselves if we don't begin to open our eyes) is not an active defiance of fitra but a passive conformity to the fitna which is hallmark of the progression of history."

"One of ahm's contentions is that 'the divine name of our time is al-sabur.' look at surah asr. as history 'progresses', we are all in a state of loss except the ones that attempt to actualize the divine name al-sabur and are the patient."

Mathnawi VI: 2955-2962

2006-05-04T00:21:00.000-07:00

The spirit is like an ant, and the body like a grain of wheat
which the ant carries to and fro continually.
The ant knows that the grains of which it has taken charge
will change and become assimilated.
One ant picks up a grain of barley on the road;
another ant picks up a grain of wheat and runs away.
The barley doesn't hurry to the wheat,
but the ant comes to the ant, yes it does.
The going of the barley to the wheat is merely consequential:
it's the ant that returns to its own kind.
Don't say, "Why did the wheat go to the barley?"
Fix your eye on the holder, not on that which is held.
As when a black ant moves along on a black felt cloth:
the ant is hidden from view; only the grain is visible on its way.
But Reason says: "Look well to your eye:
when does a grain ever move along without a carrier?"

"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Camille and Kabir Helminski
Threshold Books, 1996

You are a blessing to the world.

2006-04-26T12:30:00.000-07:00

"If you don't give what nobody in the world has to give - which is yourself - the world will not have it. In other words, if you don’t give, you rob the world of you."
Ellen Burstyn
---------------------------------------------------------
How interesting. We all strive to be different and unique - whether we admit it or not- all the while overlooking the reality that we really are created as one of a kind. Yes, i'm special! [But then again, everyone else is special too. Does that cancel out the special-ness?]

Makes one think though... why didn't God create us all the same? Why give each one of us a unique perspective, a unique filter, a unique mind, to process external stimuli.

Imagine a world where everyone was the same. Who will we pick on then? [Do we pick on other souls because we're different, or is it because it is an inherent human trait?] We were sent to this world to work on ourselves, maybe if everyone was the same, we won’t have time to pick on other people, and instead we will devote our entire being to bettering our own sense of self. No?

Imagine a world without Ali (ra), Umar (ra), Uthman (ra), and Abu Bakr (ra). Imagine the world with only One Prophet, with only one school of thought, with only one perfect man, with only one pretty woman, with just one chance at life. Boring?

Unity doesn’t necessitate monotony. Then why do we insist upon amalgamating everyone into a glob of monolithic consistency? Worse, our criteria for this sameness is shallow and goes no farther than attire and group lingo.

Why can't I look to where My God, My Rabb, has placed me and take life from there. Yes, it would be dishonest of me to claim to understand the life, beliefs, and experience of everyone that I encounter, but I can use my personal experience and beliefs to affect another person, in a positive or negative manner.

I can just be me; I can’t be everyone else and me. God wants me to work on me, in a place where He’s placed me, and with factors He’s set up around me. mememe. sorry. i like saying me.

The way in which we behave shows us something of our own self. If I’m attracted to people who bash others, who believe their 'experience' and 'understanding' is somehow divine, and not because they’ve studied the shariah on a scholarly level but because they dress and speak and look a certain way or belong to a certain 'group,' then it shows me something of my own inclination and drive rather than their sheer ignorance.

it all comes back to me, doesnt it. and what i have to offer the world.

In any case,
Shaykh Hakim Murad beautifully expresses the need to re-establish our Reliance on Allah through the virtue of Ridaa here. He's so cool. awww. ok. serious mode.

Here are some blurbs:

***Edit

***"[...]One thing most communities have in common now is that the people are in a state of agitation. One of the things that attracted me was the genuine sense of tranquility, calmness, and serenity in the masjids. People are starting to lose the virute of Ridaa – tranquil serene acceptance of Allahs will. It’s alarming that Muslims should feel so disturbed or agitated by today’s world.

We complain about negative stereotypes but that’s always been the attitude toward the believers by the non-comprehending world. True religion is about akhira, it’s about transcending the self; it’s not about gratifying or discovering the self. We should be proud the modern world doesn’t like us because it’s a sign of authenticity. Nonetheless, it’s also the case when Muslims when they view this hostility don’t find solace in the traditional virtue of Ridaa."

"[...] we find forms of agitation, we find insecurity and the necessary consequence of that -- which is that instead of being so relaxed and forgiving and inclusive and that we see the best in everybody, we increasingly judge because the slightest difference between ourselves and the doctrine or the practice of another Muslim somehow makes us feel even more insecure. We want the religion to be a monolithic consistency that gratifies our sense of insecurity."

"[...]One implication of this loss of ridaa is that we tend to judge others, perhaps we're not content with the way Allah is arranging history at this particular moment. We get jumpy and like to attack others and are extremely judgmental. And one of the greatest errors one can make in this time - according to the ulema- is the error of assuming this is the time for Perfection, for rigorism; that the harder the work becomes for the believers the more perfect we have to demand everybody is."

"[...]There is too much judgment of others but not enough judgment of ourselves. There is too much self-righteousness but not enough self knowledge."

Don't pat yourself on the back just yet....

2006-04-25T09:41:00.000-07:00

Wealth has no permanence: it comes in the morning,
and at night it is scattered to the winds.
Physical beauty too has no importance,
for a rosy face is made pale by the scratch of a single thorn.
Noble birth also is of small account,
for many become fools of money and horses.
Many a nobleman's son has disgraced his father by his wicked deeds.

Don't court a person full of talent either,
even if he seems exquisite in that respect:
take warning from the example of Iblis.
Iblis had knowledge, but since his love was not pure,
he saw in Adam nothing but a figure of clay.
Mathnawi VI: 255-260

"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996

Checks and Balances

2006-04-24T21:51:00.000-07:00

2:251 …and did not God Check one set of people by means of another, the earth would indeed be full of mischief: But God is full of bounty to all the worlds.

-Abu Hurayra reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "The deen is easy. Anyone who makes the deen too hard on himself will find it becomes too much for him. So aim for what is right, follow a middle path, accept the good news of the reward for right action, and seek help [to reach your goal by being constant in worshipping] in the morning, evening and some of the night."[al-Bukhari]

-The system of checks and balances is an important part of the Constitution. With checks and balances, each of the three branches of government can limit the powers of the others. This way, no one branch becomes too powerful. Each branch “checks” the power of the other branches to make sure that the power is balanced between them.

-In ecology, the idea that there is an inherent equilibrium in most ecosystems, with plants and animals interacting so as to produce a stable, continuing system of life on Earth. The activities of human beings can, and frequently do, disrupt the balance of nature.

-In general, organisms in the ecosystem are adapted to each other – for example, waste products produced by one species are used by another, and resources used by some are replenished by others; the oxygen needed by animals is produced by plants while the waste product of animal respiration, carbon dioxide, is used by plants as a raw material in photosynthesis. The nitrogen cycle, the water cycle, and the control of animal populations by natural predators are other examples.

-e·qui·lib·ri·um A condition in which all acting influences are canceled by others, resulting in a stable, balanced, or unchanging system.

"Master of the Jinn" - Have you read it yet?

2006-04-21T23:42:00.000-07:00

"An old Sufi tradition advises us to speak only after our words have managed to pass through four gates. At the first gate, we ask ourselves, "Are these words true?" If so, we let them pass on; if not, back they go. At the second gate we ask; "Are they necessary?" At the third gate we ask; "Are they beneficial?" and at the fourth gate, we ask, "Are they kind?" If the answer to any of these is no, then what you are about to say should be left unsaid."[Gulp!]

Irving Karchmar

What is Classical Education?

2006-04-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

Classical education depends on a three-part process of training the mind. The early years of school are spent in absorbing facts, systematically laying the foundations for advanced study. In the middle grades, students learn to think through arguments. In the high school years, they learn to express themselves. This classical pattern is called the trivium.

The first years of schooling are called the "grammar stage" — not because you spend four years doing English, but because these are the years in which the building blocks for all other learning are laid, just as grammar is the foundation for language. In the elementary school years — what we commonly think of as grades one through four — the mind is ready to absorb information. Children at this age actually find memorization fun. So during this period, education involves not self-expression and self-discovery, but rather the learning of facts. Rules of phonics and spelling, rules of grammar, poems, the vocabulary of foreign languages, the stories of history and literature, descriptions of plants and animals and the human body, the facts of mathematics — the list goes on. This information makes up the "grammar," or the basic building blocks, for the second stage of education.

By fifth grade, a child's mind begins to think more analytically. Middle-school students are less interested in finding out facts than in asking "Why?" The second phase of the classical education, the "Logic Stage," is a time when the child begins to pay attention to cause and effect, to the relationships between different fields of knowledge relate, to the way facts fit together into a logical framework.

A student is ready for the Logic Stage when the capacity for abstract thought begins to mature. During these years, the student begins algebra and the study of logic, and begins to apply logic to all academic subjects. The logic of writing, for example, includes paragraph construction and learning to support a thesis; the logic of reading involves the criticism and analysis of texts, not simple absorption of information; the logic of history demands that the student find out why the War of 1812 was fought, rather than simply reading its story; the logic of science requires that the child learn the scientific method.

The final phase of a classical education, the "Rhetoric Stage," builds on the first two. At this point, the high school student learns to write and speak with force and originality. The student of rhetoric applies the rules of logic learned in middle school to the foundational information learned in the early grades and expresses his conclusions in clear, forceful, elegant language. Students also begin to specialize in whatever branch of knowledge attracts them; these are the years for art camps, college courses, foreign travel, apprenticeships, and other forms of specialized training.

A classical education is more than simply a pattern of learning, though. Classical education is language-focused; learning is accomplished through words, written and spoken, rather than through images (pictures, videos, and television).

Why is this important? Language-learning and image-learning require very different habits of thought. Language requires the mind to work harder; in reading, the brain is forced to translate a symbol (words on the page) into a concept. Images, such as those on videos and television, allow the mind to be passive. In front of a video screen, the brain can "sit back" and relax; faced with the written page, the mind is required to roll its sleeves up and get back to work.

A classical education, then, has two important aspects. It is language-focused. And it follows a specific three-part pattern: the mind must be first supplied with facts and images, then given the logical tools for organization of facts, and finally equipped to express conclusions.

But that isn't all. To the classical mind, all knowledge is interrelated. Astronomy (for example) isn't studied in isolation; it's learned along with the history of scientific discovery, which leads into the church's relationship to science and from there to the intricacies of medieval church history. The reading of the Odyssey leads the student into the consideration of Greek history, the nature of heroism, the development of the epic, and man's understanding of the divine.
This is easier said than done. The world is full of knowledge, and finding the links between fields of study can be a mind-twisting task. A classical education meets this challenge by taking history as its organizing outline — beginning with the ancients and progressing forward to the moderns in history, science, literature, art and music.

We suggest that the twelve years of education consist of three repetitions of the same four-year pattern: Ancients, Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, and Modern Times. The child studies these four time periods at varying levels — simple for grades 1-4, more difficult in grades 5-8 (when the student begins to read original sources), and taking an even more complex approach in grades 9-12, when the student works through these time periods using original sources (from Homer to Hitler) and also has the opportunity to pursue a particular interest (music, dance, technology, medicine, biology, creative writing) in depth.

The other subject areas of the curriculum are linked to history studies. The student who is working on ancient history will read Greek and Roman mythology, the tales of the Iliad and Odyssey, early medievial writings, Chinese and Japanese fairy tales, and (for the older student) the classical texts of Plato, Herodutus, Virgil, Aristotle. She'll read Beowulf, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare the following year, when she's studying medieval and early Renaissance history. When the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are studied, she starts with Swift (Gulliver's Travels) and ends with Dickens; finally, she reads modern literature as she is studying modern history.

The sciences are studied in a four-year pattern that roughly corresponds to the periods of scientific discovery: biology, classification and the human body (subjects known to the ancients); earth science and basic astronomy (which flowered during the early Renaissance); chemistry (which came into its own during the early modern period); and then basic physics and computer science (very modern subjects).

This pattern lends coherence to the study of history, science, and literature — subjects that are too often fragmented and confusing. The pattern widens and deepens as the student progresses in maturity and learning. For example, a first grader listens to you read the story of the Iliad from one of the picture book versions available at any public library. Four years later, the fifth grader reads one of the popular middle-grade adaptations — Olivia Coolidge's The Trojan War, or Roger Lancelyn Greene's Tales of Troy. Four more years go by, and the ninth grader — faced with the Iliad itself — plunges right in, undaunted.

The classical education is, above all, systematic — in direct contrast to the scattered, unorganized nature of so much secondary education. This systematic, rigorous study has two purposes.

Rigorous study develops virtue in the student. Aristotle defined virtue as the ability to act in accordance to what one knows to be right. The virtuous man (or woman) can force himself to do what he knows to be right, even when it runs against his inclinations. The classical education continually asks a student to work against his baser inclinations (laziness, or the desire to watch another half hour of TV) in order to reach a goal — mastery of a subject.

Systematic study also allows the student to join what Mortimer Adler calls the "Great Conversation" — the ongoing conversation of great minds down through the ages. Much modern education is so eclectic that the student has little opportunity to make connections between past events and the flood of current information. "The beauty of the classical curriculum," writes classical schoolmaster David Hicks, "is that it dwells on one problem, one author, or one epoch long enough to allow even the youngest student a chance to exercise his mind in a scholarly way: to make connections and to trace developments, lines of reasoning, patterns of action, recurring symbolisms, plots, and motifs."

Susan Wise Bauer

Clarity...

2006-04-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

Ibn 'Abbas said, "One day I was behind the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and he said, 'Boy, I will teach you some words:

Be careful regarding Allah and He will take care of you. Be careful regarding Allah and you will find Him in front of you. When you ask, ask Allah and when you seek help, seek help from Allah. Know that if the whole community were to gather together to help you with something, they would not be able to help you in any way unless Allah had written that for you. And if they were to gather together to harm you in some way, they would not be able to harm you except with something which Allah had written for you. The pens have been lifted and the pages are dry."

[at-Tirmidhi]

Challenge yourself to see some good in everyone...

2006-04-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

The way in which we react to 'others' shows something of our own inner state. Like it is stated, when a thief 'sees' a saint, all that he sees are his pockets.

How many pearly white teeth do you see each day?

______________________________________________________________________
Hazret Isa, may peace be upon him, was walking with his disciples when they came upon a decaying dead dog. The disciples frowned and covered their mouths and noses to avoid the horrible stench. One disciple commented on the maggots, another mourned his lost appetite, while a third gaped at the dogs exposed ribs. Isa (as)paused then inquired: "Did you see that dog's lovely pearly white teeth?"

THE MARK THEN THE MARKER

2006-04-11T23:15:00.000-07:00

First there’s the mark, then the marker, the
scratch then the scratcher, the
wound then the wounder, decreed before

the creation of the world. The murder takes place
long before the murderer moseys along to
commit it, in an

out-of-the-way cinema, behind a
curtain we’ll never penetrate. All
action has taken place, all damsels

kidnapped and rescued, Titanics
sunk and rediscovered, all children
waving plump arms and legs
then conceived, all shadows

walking along ahead of their casters (but
not too far), all deaths
unpostponed and already come to pass before we
arrive at the appointment with our
best or worst faces forward, our
best or worst suits with roses pinned in their
lapels and last words on our lips that will
blaze down through the ages for their
succinct wisdom or else non sequitur numbness,
a summing up that includes the
eagle diving off its summit, or an offhand remark
suddenly having to suffice. Something about
turning on the night light. Something about
tucking in the covers, or closing the
glove compartment tighter, suddenly

made into our last words because there will
be no others. These too

decreed. And the light
coming up on the wall. The rainbow
rising and arcing across, band by
band of excruciatingly

beautiful colors the dead no longer see
and the living just barely appreciate.

6/8/99
(from I Imagine a Lion)
DANIEL ABDAL-HAYY MOORE
"For me the province of poetry is a private ecstasy made public, and the social role of the poet is to display moments of shared universal epiphanies capable of healing our sense of mortal estrangement—from ourselves, from each other, from our source, from our destiny, from The Divine."

Where are the Storytellers?

2006-04-11T19:17:00.000-07:00

Long before writing was invented, human beings read thier world. They interpreted their dreams and the flights of birds. They read the intestines of sacrificial animals and the memories of their ancestors. They read the things that surprised them, or the things that reminded them of something else. Most of all, they read in the places where there were holes -- spaces -- gaps. They filled up the blanks of the universe, as though they were pages, with writing. Leonardo advised aspiring artists to "discove" the pictures to be found in the cracks in walls; Chinese sages were conceived as their mothers stepped into the footprints of unicorns; all of us make up our lives out of the cracks in the walls of our past memories and the unicorn footprints of our future. The making of a life is similar to the making of a text. We live by reading our own stories[...].

Lynda Sexon

Guess Who?

2006-04-10T00:33:00.000-07:00

Having spent the first nine years of my life in Pakistan, a predominantly Muslim country, I’ve never felt completely American, yet I can’t claim to feel any particular allegiance for Pakistan either. To make matters worse, I’ve now migrated to CANADA (no offense, Canadians!).

I’ve always felt like an outsider and while in Junior High I did my best to fit in, but then there came a time in my life when I said ENOUGH! And this is when I finally began to really appreciate my roots, my upbringing, and in essence, my self.

(Anytime I’ve felt a pinch of Nationalism/Tribalism in my heart, Gods uprooted me and plopped me in another spot; perhaps gently reminding me to know my limits. Well, I say Thank You GOD, I love you too!)

Back to my alien status! At every step in my life, I’ve found agents in my life that have tired to convince me that I don't belong. That depite of me, I’m not really an American, or on the flip side that I’m too Westernized to fit the role of your average Pakistani. For some reason, I’m always too liberal for the conservatives and too conservative for the liberals. Go figure.

I’ll admit sometimes I do feel like im not authentic enough -- with most things in my life actually. But for some odd reason I’ve never been intimidated when questioned about the status of my Muslim-ness.

Now, imagine my surprise, when I first entered an official gathering of a very artificial imitation of what a Muslim gathering would be like in a place we shall call the MSA. Now sometimes this can be a place where suddenly (quicker than a blink of an eye) people you don’t really know will come up to you and tell you how wrong you are in the way you pray, sit, stand, sleep, speak, and blink. I’m sorry; Mother, is that you?

Here we go an outsider again. :dramatic sigh: I have a lot of favorite bloopers so ill just mention one of my favorites: A senior, very Muslim, lady suddenly went into a seizure and started screaming at a very young Msa freshman for picking up two dates, instead of three. She went on for a good five minutes until the poor girl was in tears. (Yes, this is when Salafism was all the rage) (and no I dont take any part in promoting or bashing the Salafi group) (and yes the Sunni groups are just as guilty of this ‘me vs. you’ mentality.)

Now this is what gets me, no one, not a single person stood up for this innocent Girl. Except Moi! :cough: So I very gently (perhaps a bit sarcastically) asked Ms.Hulk to be more gentle when imparting instantaneous fatwas. She came back with, “ But aren’t you taking a Bible class?” (Implying I wasn’t Muslim enough to open my trap.)(and yes i was, teehee).

I should’ve been offended but heres the thing, I grew up in Muslim family, in a Muslim community, in a Muslim country, for the first nine years of my life. Perhaps being guilty of being backward in Westernization, still American Muslims can not compete with any given Muslim Country (or China) when it comes to Islamic Culture (Albeit, of many different fruity flavors, one sees a common trend of cooperation and unity across the line) .Yes, governments are corrupt but the family structure is very strong and very Muslim, and has hundreds of years of history.

Allow me to illustrate with this example: In the year 1999, I visited my relatives in Pakistan. Since I was a guest (a freshman so to speak) people ignored a lot of my 'bad manners,' and instead of slapping me repeatedly, chose to bite their lips, and welcomed me into their homes. I remember being in the house of a very cranky grandma type who wanted me to bring a pitcher of cool water from the kitchen, but luck was not my friend that day, and I slipped breaking a very ancient and pricy pitcher. I could just see her knocking me to the ground but instead she managed a weird frown that was her rendition of a smile. While the housekeeper cleaned my mess, I was asked to help myself to the delicious food. I reached for the spoon with my left hand but at the last moment switched to my right hand. That was it. Suddenly, everyone just went crazy, each singing their own songs, in my honor. I felt redeemed. And taller!

Notice how I didn’t have to use words. I didn’t have to say, I FOLLOW THE SUNNAH. “Lookatme, I know what tasuwwuf is!” Weee. People could read me; they knew I was nervous and they wanted to honor me.(Their slaps of gentleness were quite sweet.)

Sadly, this very simple exercise in observation is missing in our current discourse on Islam in America. We use words, a lot of them, yet we can’t read each other. We follow trends and labels- Salafi today, Sufi tomorrow- yet don’t focus on the most important task in our lives, self – transformation. People spend all their energies on attacking and defending views that should really be discussed by a very few and perhaps less retarded people, namely the Scholars. There were hundreds of sects in the past yet people treated each other with respect because they were part of a culture that encouraged unity not alienation.

And because of understanding Islam through a culture of cooperation, gentleness, and dignity, I find myself recognizing God in every Noble thing. I use quotes from every source possible because I’m the filter (and this filter is very much Muslim) and this filter is not insecure in the least. (Well, im not secure either but that’s a different discussion)

I’m not about to convert to – insert your favorite ‘--- ism’ here – just because I liked the quote or showed respect to another sect/religion/person/utterance. I’m a Sunni and a Hanafi not because I’ve studied these disciplines on a scholarly level, but because this is how I was raised and im comfortable with it. The ideals I hold in my heart are compatible with the interpretation of Sunni Islam. and yes, I like people who make my heart melt, even if they call themselves Sufi or Hindu.

Yes, labels again, see I can easily drop the accepted lingo of say a particular traditional group, but I choose otherwise, because I’m not in Junior High anymore. And I like being me.

Bleh...

2006-04-10T00:09:00.000-07:00

Goldi - While thinking about your question, I got side tracked with shopping ( I bought 145 books for 45 dollars!) (Go library sales!) and by a question from another person (who chooses to remain anonymous). Basically, he/she wanted to know what kind of a Muslim I was. and after writing the a long email, which i'm turning into a post, I feel like I sort of answered your question as well. Perhaps, not really. But in short, I agree with you. God's Mercy extends to all things and while we know what 'attributes,' not, 'labels' are worthy of God's Mercy (as explained in the Quran and interpreted by Sunni Scholars), we can't place judgment on any human being, because:

a) its not our place (I'm no scholar)
and
b)who knows what state a person is when they die. (I'm no angel of death)

Our God is not a Tribal God. While He selects Whom He Loves, His Mercy extends to All. and yes, I will not answer your question directly. and I don't define myself as a Perennialists, but I do appreciate the wisdom of the two people,(mentioned earlier), who fall under that category.

Boo-Hoo! :)

World Wisdom

2006-04-04T15:22:00.000-07:00

Martin Lings: Video Clips on his Early Spiritual Influences
The late Martin Lings (1909-2005), renowned author on Islam, Sufism, Shakespeare, and the arts and thought of traditional civilizations, gave an interview in late 1993 in which he spoke about his spiritual influences. He discussed his early spiritual search, his readings of René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon, and how he came to be associated with these two great Perennialist figures. These seven video clips are excerpts from that conversation that deal with his own spiritual development.
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4
Video 5
Video 6
Video 7

William C. Chittick explores "The Sufi Doctrine of Rumi"
In The Sufi Doctrine of Rumi: Illustrated Edition, William C. Chittick offers essential points of reference that serve as an accurate guidebook through the magical landscape of one of the greatest spiritual figures in the history of the world, Rumi.

Quotes to Note

2006-03-31T12:24:00.000-08:00

"There is no such thing as coincidence, just the illusion of coincidence itself"
V for Vendetta

"But if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror."
V for Vendetta

Evey Hammond:" You're getting back at them for what they did to her. And to you."
V: "What was done to me created me. It is the basic principle of the universe, that each action will have an equal and opposing reaction."
Evey: "Is that how you see it? Like an equation?"
V: "What was done to me was monstrous."
Evey Hammond: "And they created a monster."
V for Vendetta

Evey Hammond: "Artists use lies to tell the truth. Politicians use them to cover it up."
V for Vendetta

V: "There is no certainty, only opportunity."
V for Vendetta
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Corruption charges. Corruption? Corruption ain't nothing more than government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulation. That's Milton Friedman. He got a goddamn Nobel Prize. We have laws against it precisely so we can get away with it. Corruption is our protection. Corruption is what keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why you and I are here in the white-hot center of things instead of fighting each other for scraps of meat out there in the streets. Corruption... is why we win." — Danny D to Bennett
Syrianna

"When a country has five percent of the world's population but spends fifty percent of the world's military spending, that country's persuasive power is in decline." - Prince Nasir speaking of the United States
Syrianna

Snap!

2006-03-31T12:22:00.000-08:00

“The great scholars of the age split hairs on all manner of sciences. They know perfectly and have a complete comprehension of those matters which do not concern them. But as for what is truly of moment and touches a man more closely than all else, namely his own self, this your great scholar does not know.”

—Rumi

Remember, remember, the fifth of November...

2006-03-31T12:11:00.000-08:00

I don't usually write about my daily life. Aside from it being dull and boring I really don't see the benefit in pointing out my daily yackety-yak. So why am I still talking about it? Good point.

So I watched two movies this past weekend. The first one, Inside Man, started with an Indian song called "Chaiyah Chaiyah," which if I recall correctly had something to do with Sharukh Khan horsing around atop a moving train. At first, I thought I was in the wrong theatre; then I thought I should apologize to my husband for spitting my coke/popcorn medley in his face, but why spoil him, right? Back to the movie, they played an entire Indian song! The movie was good too. Go Spike Lee! I also enjoyed the bit about the Sikh guy being mistaken for an Arab and the rant that followed thereafter, which included phrases like 'Random selection my arse' ' I'm not Arab.' In response to which one of the African American cop blurts out: At least you can get a cab. LOL! Priceless.

Lesson Learned: I'm not exclusive in my trials. There are plenty of others going through the same - if not worse - ordeals.

Second movie, V for Vendetta, started with this intro, which I have been practicing in front of a mirror:
(And yes it is because I mix my V's with my W’s. Go ahead, laugh all you want!)

This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V. (V's introduction of himself to Evey)

And yes, he was like a crazy person. The movie was interesting but whats even more fascinating to me is that I understood a lot of the undertones because of the DAILY SHOW. If you're an avid fan like myself, you know what I'm talking about. Here's an example:

V for Vendetta:
V: Behind this mask is a man, and behind this man is an idea. And ideas are bulletproof.

Daily Show:
When Mr. Stewart asked Mr. Colbert for his take on whether Saddam was dead or alive, the correspondent answered, "One thing is certain: If Saddam is dead, it greatly reduces his ability to control Iraq."

But wouldn't his death end his control entirely? asked Mr. Stewart.

Not necessarily, argued Mr. Colbert: "When this man appears in public no one is sure it's actually him, and yet he's held an iron grip on power since 1979 — 24 years of brutal dictatorship, all while only maybe existing.

"The point is we can kill Saddam Hussein but we won't win the war until we kill the idea of Saddam Hussein. So what we need to do is develop bombs that kill ideas."

Lesson Learned: More and more people should watch The Daily Show.

I enjoyed the movie - Mr. Smith as V was super- but i don’t agree with its message. There were a lot of interesting ideas in this movie - it was more philosophical than action-packed - but im not sure I agree with such violent means to get your point across, as in the real world that kind of behavior only strengthens those already in power.

Another Must See Blog:

2006-03-30T10:40:00.000-08:00

I know I'm a loser but I'm really excited about working with the Arabic Verb Chart. It is fun to create bigger chunks of words from just three root letters, mainly because I already know the words in Urdu -- but now I know what they mean. Woo, I don't have a life.

In any case, Mr. Gem here has a wonderful blog that better illustrates what I'm trying to convey: Arabic Gems

Here's an Excerpt:
"One of phenomena that is immediately noticed among learners of Arabic is that its lexicon resembles a tree wherein some words are built on and branch out from others that usually take the form of tri-consonantal roots. This etymological phenomenon in Arabic is known as al-Ishtiqaaq and there are various theories regarding the complexity of it; this post will cover the aspect that all the scholars of Arabic agree upon completely.

The most well-known example in this is the case of the root letters jeem-noon ج-ن, the general meaning of which indicates something that is concealed or hidden to the eye. From this root branch out the words:

jinn جِنٌّ referring to the other form of creation that share the world with us whom are concealed from our sight
junnah جُنَّةٌ referring to a shield, for it conceals parts of the user from the sight of others
janeen جنين referring to a fetus, which is concealed in the womb
the verb ajanna أَجَنَّ referring to the act of concealment, as in the phrase ajannahu al-laylu أجنَّهُ الليلُ meaning 'he was concealed by [the darkness of] the night.'"

A tree, sent down from above.

The Language of Love

2006-03-24T10:42:00.000-08:00

" [...] To illustrate his point, Shaykh Muhammad narrated the following story.

Rabi’a Al-Adawiya fell ill and Hasan Al-Basri, Shaqiq Al-Balkhi and Malik ibn Dinar, may Allah be pleased with them all, visited her.

Al-Basri said to her: None is sincere in his claim to love God unless he patiently “endures” the blows of his Lord.

Rabi’a: This sounds like egoism.

Shaqiq: None is sincere in his claim to love God unless he gives “thanks” for the blows of his Lord.

Rabi’a praised this but felt that there must be better.

Malik: None is sincere in his claim to love God unless he “delights” in the blows of his Lord.

But Rabi’a was not satisfied with this state either. She said it needed to be improved. So they asked her to speak.

Rabi’a: None is sincere in his claim to love God unless he “forgets” the blows in beholding his Lord.

Shaykh Muhammad pointed out that “enduring” entails remembering, not only the blows, but also the pain behind the blows. Giving “thanks” and “delighting” are also about remembering while Rabi’a Al-Adawiya was teaching that “before your Lord, you should not remember anything.”

Nazim Baksh
Read the full article here.

A Conversation on Good and Evil.

2006-03-24T10:29:00.000-08:00

A Conversation on Good and Evil.

With William Chittick, Sachiko Murata, Kabir Helminski.

Threshold Society Annual Gathering, August 2001

Sayyiduna Ali (ra)

2006-03-23T12:27:00.000-08:00

"Your word is dependent on you until you utter it, but once you utter it, you will be dependent on it."

"Four things are most difficult to achieve: To forgive when angry, to be forebearing in the face of oppression, to be generous in times of scarcity and to be abstinent when alone."

The Book Of Character

Doh!

2006-03-21T20:59:00.000-08:00

I feel kind of foolish. I had only seen the first Medinah book. Doh!
There is actually more than one(four to be exact)available online. They get more intense with each volume. You can find them here:

Medinah Islamic University
Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
Book 4

Another Great Website...

2006-03-21T17:12:00.000-08:00

Seeker After Truth
A lot of interesting articles and stories.

I love this story. My mama used to tell it to me (slightly different version) when i was being cranky with others: Musa & The Shepherd
By Mojdeh Bayat & Mohammad Ali Jamnia

The Book Foundation

2006-03-21T15:45:00.000-08:00

Do check out this excellent website:The Book Foundation

Samples of Programs in Development (available for downloading/viewing)
=========================
The Fragrance of Faith"...this special teaching I refer to is a learning attained by contemplation on stories and verses. This simple method of teaching and learning is found in many traditions. The profoundest truth is sometimes best expressed by a teaching story or sacred verse that illuminates. Islamic mystics make prolific use of this technique."

The Book of Character"...character development, then, is the process of unpacking what God has provided us for our journey through this world, and into the next. Various experiences during this life may stamp us and mold our character. But since all experiences ultimately come from God, everything we encounter in this life is part of God’s knowledge of the character He has stamped us with, in eternity, before we came into this world."

Lights of the Qur'an
"... a sourcebook of Quranic selections and accompanying interpretations. These selections were made, above all, to highlight the fundamental spiritual principles contained in the Qur’an. If you are new to the Qur’an, we hope that this book will provide a balanced view of the Heart of the Qur’an. If you are already a student of the Qur’an, we hope that these selections will perhaps awaken a new appreciation for the universal spiritual wisdom of the Book."

The Book Foundation
__________________________________________

The Book Foundation is a non-profit charitable company in the United Kingdom. Its essential mission is to bring to light the universal message of Islam as revealed in the Holy Qur'an and the lived example of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings upon him), as well as the finest elements of the Islamic tradition. Its sphere of operation embraces curriculum development, creative arts sponsorship, and the publication of works which bring to light its aims, including The Message of the Qur'an by Muhammad Asad and translations of this work into other languages.

Contact Us: Jeremy Henzell-Thomas -- Kabir Helminski
©2002-2003 The Book Foundation. All Rights Reserved.