Video Lectures From the World's Top Academics

Academic Earth has video lectures from some of the top universities on a multitude of topics. Check it out. Read More...

Language Learning Community

This link looks interesting: buusu.com. You can use it for English, German, Spanish, and French. Oh, and it's free. Read More...

Human Anatomy Studies on the Web

A collection of anatomy resources. Enjoy! Read More...

Thirty / Seventy Split

My husband and I are taking the Sacred Scrolls: 40 Hadith Nawawi course taught by Sh. Yasir Qadhi through AlMaghrib Institute (he's going to the physical location and I am fortunate enough to take it online, alhamduLILLAH). It is a very beneficial class,and I am learning a lot.

One benefit of attending programs of this nature is having direct access to the scholars of our time. My husband asked the sheikh about homeschooling, in particular, what emphasis should we place on sacred vs. secular schooling. The nasiha that he was given is to split their Islamic and secular learning into a 30/70 ratio respectively. Keep in mind, this can be adjusted accordingly as the child's age, needs and abilities change.

This is basically what I plan to do this year, InshaALLAH. I had my schedule done a while ago but silly me, I forgot to add math to it, lol. I need to revise it now because I have realized that my almost two year old is just a small step behind my three year old.
They are in direct competition for everything, i.e. attention, toys,food,potty training (yes, the boy is still figuring it out,lol).



We are affectionately calling them "the twins" now. For the most part, they have a great relationship and follow each other around the home getting into mutual mischief. So, the real test is figuring out how to keep their attention spans and gently introduce a preschool curriculum, all the while maintaining the progress that my daughter and I have thus made.



We started the new phonics program the other day and so far I like it. There is plenty of work to do without being futile or overwhelming and it is designed with the one-room schoolhouse child in mind. She should be able to do a lot of the work independently so that I have time to turn my attention to the other children.

AlhamduLILLAH, we are blessed to have them so close in age - my sister and I are seven years apart so I can only imagine what it's like to be making memories together.

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Maulana Waris Mazhari: Countering Pakistani Terrorists' Anti-India Propaganda on Ghazwat ul-Hind

For almost two decades now, self-styled jihadist outfits based in Pakistan have been engaged in a war against India in Kashmir . This war of theirs has no sanction in Islam, which does not allow for proxy war, and that too one declared by non-state actors. It is an explicit violation of all Islamic principles. These outfits, which have considerable support inside Pakistan , see the conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir as a religious struggle, and they wrongly describe it as a jihad. They regard their role in Kashmir as but the first step in a grand, though completely fanciful, plan to annex India into Pakistan and convert it into what they style as dar ul-islam, the Abode of Islam. But what they finally dream of establishing, or so they boast, is Muslim hegemony throughout the entire world.

I have used the term ‘hegemony’ here deliberately, for radical Muslim groups in Pakistan and in the Arab world have been indelibly influenced and shaped by the hegemonic designs of European colonialism in the past and Western imperialism today, and, in some senses, are a reaction to this hegemonic project. They seek to counter Western political supremacy and replace it by what they conceive of as Islamic political supremacy. In my view, this approach is in sharp contradistinction to Islamic teachings. The term ghalba-e islam, the establishment of the supremacy of Islam, used in the context of the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet (Hadith), refers not to any political project of Muslim domination, but, rather, to the establishment of the superiority of Islam’s ideological and spiritual message. This, in fact, was the basic crux of the mission of the Prophet Muhammad. However, the term has been distorted at the hands of the self-styled jihadists, who present it as a project to establish Muslim or Islamic political domination over the entire world.

Today, as the case of the Pakistani self-styled jihadists so tragically illustrates, many of those who claim to be struggling in the cause of Islam themselves work against Islamic teachings by deliberately or otherwise misinterpreting them. This is the case with their misuse of the term jihad in the context of Kashmir in order to win mass support for themselves. Needless to add, this is a major cause for growing anti-Islamic sentiments among many non-Muslims.

The dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir has been lingering for more than half a century. A major hurdle in the resolution of this conflict are the self-styled jihadists based in Pakistan , who insist that the conflict over Kashmir is an Islamic jihad and that, therefore, war is the only solution. They claim that participation in this so-called jihad has become a farz-e ayn, a duty binding on all Muslims, and some of them, most prominently the dreaded Lashkar-e Tayyeba, even go so far as to claim that the war in Kashmir is nothing but the ghazwat ul-hind, the ‘war against India’ which is mentioned in a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. By this they want to suggest that waging war against India is an Islamic duty, something prophesied by the Prophet Muhammad himself.

What is the actual meaning and implication of the statement attributed to the Prophet regarding the ghazwat ul-hind, which the Pakistan-based self-styled jihadists regularly refer to, and grossly misinterpret, in order to whip up anti-Indian sentiments and seek what they wrongly claim is Islamic sanction for their deadly terror attacks against India, in Kashmir and beyond? Before I discuss that, I must point out that the statement attributed to the Prophet regarding the ghazwat ul-hind is found in only one of the sihah sitta, the six collections of Hadith reports of the Sunni Muslims—in the collection by al-Nasai. This statement was narrated by Abu Hurairah, a companion of the Prophet. According to him, the Prophet prophesied a battle against India . If he (Abu Hurairah) got the chance to participate in this battle, Abu Hurairah said, he would do so, sacrificing his wealth and life. If he died in this battle, he said, he would be counted among the exalted martyrs. According to another narration, related by the Prophet’s freed slave Thoban, the Prophet once declared that there were two groups among the Muslims whom God had saved from the fires of Hell. The first would be a group that invaded India . The other group would be those Muslims who accompanied Jesus (after he returned to the world). A similar narration is contained in the collections of Hadith by Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Bayhaqi and Tabrani.

Because this hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind mentions India , and is marshaled by self-styled Pakistan-based jihadists active in Kashmir, it marks the Kashmir conflict out as clearly distinct from other conflicts elsewhere in the world between Muslims and others. These self-styled jihadists regularly invoke this hadith, trapping people in their net by claiming that if they were to die fighting the Indians in Kashmir they would be saved from hell and would earn a place in heaven. This claim, false though it is, is regularly and constantly repeated, as is evident from a host of Pakistani websites and periodicals.

Let me quote a revealing instance in this regard. Recently, I came across the August 2003 issue of ‘Muhaddith’, an Urdu magazine published from Lahore , Pakistan . It contains a 20-page article on the ghazwat ul-hind, written by a certain Dr. Asmatullah, Assistant Professor at the Islamic Research Academy of the International Islamic University, Islamabad . The article represents a pathetic effort to project the ongoing conflict in Kashmir as precisely the same ghazwat ul-hind that the Prophet is said to have predicted. And it is on the basis of this reported hadith of the Prophet that ultra-radical Islamists in Pakistan talk about unleashing a so-called jihad, extending out of Kashmir and to consume the whole of India . This is no longer limited to just fiery rhetoric alone, but, in fact, is also now accompanied by deadly terror attacks in different parts of India, which Pakistan-based radicals wrongly style as a jihad or even as the ghawzat ul-hind reportedly prophesied by the Prophet. It is striking to note in this connection that in the above-mentioned article, the editors of ‘Muhadith’ disagree with the views of the author, expressing their differences in the form of a footnote. Yet, this counter-view, as expressed by the editors of the magazine, is hardly ever discussed or even referred to in Pakistani so-called jihadist literature, indicating, therefore, that the rhetoric of the self-styled jihadists is based less on proper scholarly analysis of the Islamic textual tradition than on strident, heated emotionalism and a deep-rooted hatred and feeling of revenge. This applies not just in the Pakistani case. Rather, is a phenomenon common to almost all so-called jihadist movements throughout the rest of the world.

The Pakistani self-styled jihadists, it would appear, have made the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind into a plaything in their hands in order to entrap innocent people. It is quite possible that the Pakistani youth who were involved in the recent deadly terrorist attack on Mumbai were fed on this sort of poisonous propaganda and led into believing that they might go straight to heaven if they waged war against India . In India , the banned Students Islamic Movement of India appeared to have backed the same wholly erroneous and unwarranted interpretation of the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind, following in the footsteps of Pakistani radical groups. Mercifully, as far as I know, no other Indian Muslim group or scholar worthy of mention has adopted the ‘Pakistani interpretation’ of this particular hadith report.

Tragically, the concept of jihad has been subjected to considerable abuse and made to serve extremist ends by self-styled jihadists. This started in the very first century of Islam itself, when intra-Muslim wars were sought to be christened by competing groups as jihads. And because of the distorted understanding of jihad championed by many Muslims themselves, they labeled any and every controversy and conflict with non-Muslims, even if it had nothing at all to do with religion but everything to do with politics, as a jihad, as the case of Kashmir well exemplifies. Another facet of the distorted understanding of jihad by some Muslims are suicide-bombings, in which innocent civilians are killed. Yet another is proxy war by non-state actors, such as armed self-styled jihadist groups, which actually has no legitimacy in Islam at all.

Coming back to the question of the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind, some aspects of the report deserve particular scrutiny. Firstly, as mentioned earlier, this report is mentioned only in the collection of al-Nasai from among the six collections of Hadith which most Sunnis regard, to varying degrees, as canonical. However, considering the merits or rewards of the ghazwat ul-hind that it talks about, it ought, one might think, to have been narrated by many more companions of the Prophet. But that, as it curiously happens, is not the case.

Secondly, and this follows from above, it is possible that this hadith report is not genuine and that it might have been manufactured in the period of the Ummayad Caliphs to suit and justify their own political purposes and expansionist deigns. On the other hand, if this hadith report is indeed genuine—which it might well be—in my view, the battle against India that it predicted was fulfilled in the early Islamic period itself, and is not something that will happen in the future. This, in fact, is the opinion of the majority of the ulema, qualified Islamic scholars. And this view accords with reason as well. It is quite likely that the ghazwat ul-hind that this report predicted took the form of the attack by an Arab Muslim force on Thana and Bharuch, in coastal western India , in the 15th year or the Islamic calendar in the reign of the Caliph Umar. Equally possibly, it could have been fulfilled in the form of the missionary efforts of some of the Prophet’s companions soon after, in the reign of the Caliphs Uthman and Ali, in Sindh and Gujarat . Some other ulema consider this hadith to have been fulfilled in the form of the attack and occupation of Sindh by Arab Muslims led by Muhammad bin Qasim in the 93rd year of the Islamic calendar, which then facilitated the spread of Islam in the country. This might well be the case, for the hadith report about the ghazwat ul-hind contained in the Masnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, a well-known collection of Hadith narratives attributed to the Prophet, mentions that the Muslim army that would attack India would be sent in the direction of Sindh and Hind.

Thirdly, this hadith mentions only a single or particular battle (ghazwa), and not a series of continuing battles, unlike what the author of the article in the ‘Muhaddith’, referred to above, echoing the arguments of Pakistani self-styled jihadists, claims.

Fourthly, it must be remembered that it would have been very easy for Muslim conquerors of India in the past, men like Mahmud of Ghazni, Shihabuddin Ghori, Timur, Nadir Shah and so on, to present the hadith about the ghazwat ul-hind and wield it as a weapon to justify their attacks on the country. The corrupt ulema associated with their courts could well have suggested this to them had they wished. However, no such mention is made about this in history books. In the eighteenth century, the well-known Islamic scholar Shah Waliullah of Delhi invited the Afghan warlord Ahmad Shah Abdali to invade India and dispel the Marathas, which he accepted, but yet Shah Waliullah, too, did not use this hadith as a pretext for this.

It is also pertinent to examine how some well-known contemporary Indian ulema look at this hadith report. Maulana Abdul Hamid Numani, a leading figure of the Jamiat ul-Ulema-i Hind, opines that this hadith was fulfilled at the time of the ‘Four Righteous Caliphs’ of the Sunnis, soon after the demise of the Prophet Muhammad, when several companions of the Prophet came to India, mainly in order to spread Islam. Mufti Sajid Qasmi, who teaches at the Dar ul-Uloom in Deoband, is also of the same opinion, although he believes that it might also refer to the invasion of Sindh by the Arabs under Muhammad bin Qasim in the eighth century. On the other hand, Maulana Mufti Mushtaq Tijarvi of the Jamaat-i Islami Hind believes that it is possible that this hadith report is not genuine at all and that it might have been fabricated at the time of Muhammad bin Qasim’s invasion of Sindh in order to justify it.

Whatever the case might be, the misuse by radical groups of this hadith report to spearhead war in Kashmir in the name of so-called jihad and to foment conflict between India and Pakistan is tragic, to say the least. It is nothing sort of a crime against God and the Prophet. In their worldviews and in their actions as well, the self-styled jihadist outfits seem to have gone the way of the Khawarij, a group that emerged in the early period of Islam and who were rejected by other Muslims. The Khawarij believed that they alone were Muslims and that all others, including those who called themselves Muslims, were infidels and fit to be killed. With reference to the Khawarij, the Prophet predicted that they would depart from Islam in the same way as an arrow flies out of a bow. About the Khawarij the Caliph Ali mentioned that they take the word of truth and turn it into falsehood (kalimatu haqqin urida beha al-batil). This he said in the context of the Khawarij misinterpreting the Quran and claiming that Ali and his followers were infidels who deserved to be killed.

It is imperative, and extremely urgent, for Muslim scholars, particularly the ulema, to take strict notice of, and stridently oppose the radical self-styled jihadists, who are distorting and misunderstandings Islamic teachings, following in the footsteps of the Khawarij of the past, and spreading death and destruction in the name of Islam. Jihad, properly understood, is a struggle to put an end to strife and conflict, not to create or foment it, as is being done today. The general public, particularly Muslims themselves, should be made aware of the dangerous deviation of the self-styled jihadists and the horrendous implications of their acts and views. In this regard, a major responsibility rests with the ulema of India and Pakistan . These days, ulema groups in India are very actively involved in organizing conferences and holding rallies seeking to defend themselves and Islam from the charges terrorism leveled against them. This is a very welcome thing. However, they must also stridently speak out against and clearly and unambiguously expose and denounce the self-styled soldiers of Islam who are promoting terrorism in the name of Islam. At the same time, it is also urgent to promote re-thinking of some medieval notions of jihad, such as that of offensive jihad, which does not actually have any Islamic legitimacy. This is essential for Muslims to live in today’s times and to come to terms with democracy and pluralism. Simply verbally defending Muslims and Islam from the charges of terrorism is, clearly, not enough. Nor is it adequate to simply condemn terrorism in very general terms. The truth is, and this cannot be disputed, that today there is also a pressing need to unleash a ‘jihad’ against the self-styled jihadist outfits themselves. And in this jihad, undoubtedly, the ulema and Muslim intellectuals have a central role to play and a major responsibility to shoulder.


Maulana Waris Mazhari, a graduate of the Dar ul-Uloom at Deoband, is the editor of the Delhi-based ‘Tarjuman Dar ul-Uloom’, the official organ of the Deoband Graduates’ Association. He can be contacted on w.mazhari@gmail.com

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Check Them as They Grow

I found an interesting list of speech development milestones at the National Institute of Deafness and other Communication Disorders. If you scroll down, there is a section that approximates a child's speech development based on age.

This is important because the sooner any speech or language problems are discovered, the easier it is for the child to get on with their education without losing interest in learning or losing confidence. Sometimes, problems can simply be resolved by training underdeveloped muscles in the mouth. Read More...

The Dar ul-Uloom at Deoband, which played a leading role in the struggle for India’s freedom from the British, has, in recent years, been targeted by certain forces that have sought to link it with terrorism. In this regard, Shahid Zaidi, correspondent for the Urdu Alami Sahara, recently interviewed Maulana Abdul Khaliq Madrasi, the Deputy Rector of the Dar ul-Uloom, to elicit his reactions. It appeared in the 17th January, 2009 issue of the paper. Below are excerpts of the interview, translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand.

Q: For some years now, charges have been levelled against the Dar ul-Uloom Deoband of being allegedly associated with terrorism. Why is this so?

A: This requires a detailed explanation, but I will be brief. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the West, principally America, required an enemy to sustain itself, and this it conjured up in the form of Islam. In this project, the Jewish lobby had a key and leading role to play. Following the attacks of 9/11, the Western powers invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and, at the same time, also launched a sustained attack against Islam itself. Hence began a well-planned conspiracy to defame Islamic institutions and to seek to link Islam and Muslims with terrorism. In such a situation, how could one expect that the anti-Islamic forces would not make the Dar ul-Uloom an object of their attack? However, not only has the Dar ul-Uloom effectively rebutted this malicious and false propaganda against it, but it has also unleashed a jihad against terrorism. And, besides tearing off the veil behind which American global terrorism masquerades, it has also sought to expose the growing terrorism within India itself, and this struggle continues.

Q: But why is it that within India some forces are seeking to present a very negative image of the Dar ul-Uloom Deoband?

A: This is not limited just to the Dar ul-Uloom Deoband. Islam and Muslims themselves are being sought to be projected in the same light. Behind this, too, is the hand of Israel and America, who are being helped by the Sangh Parivar in India. I believe that this game started ever since our country’s relations with America and Israel became increasingly close. Muslim intellectuals, ulema and also the leaders of the Dar ul-Uloom Deoband have consistently been stressing the point that this unholy and dangerous game of terrorism is being jointly played by the Israeli secret service agency Mossad, the American intelligence agencies and the Sangh Parivar, acting together, who have sought to place the blame for this squarely on the Dar ul-Uloom and on Muslims in general. This is clearly evident from the terror links of some people associated with the Sangh Parivar that were unearthed by the chief of the Mumbai Anti-Terror Squad, the late Hemant Karkare, a brave officer who was recently martyred. Had he survived a few more days he would have brought to light much more evidence. The circumstances surrounding his death have raised numerous doubts and questions.

Q: The report of the Second Administrative Commission, headed by Veerappa Moily that was commissioned by the present UPA Government, has, in its section on countering terrorism, claimed that the chief of the Jaish-e Mohammad, Masood Azhar, paid a secret visit to India in 1996, where he met with leaders of the Dar ul-Uloom at Deoband. On the basis of this report, Vinay Katiyar, a senior BJP leader, has accused the Dar ul-Uloom of harbouring terrorists. What do you have to say about this?

A: If it is true that the report of the Commission has said this, it must present whatever proof or evidence that it has to substantiate the claim. The allegation that Vinay Katiyar has leveled against the Dar ul-Uloom, based on the report, is serious, and it is the duty of the Government to establish its veracity or otherwise. We have earlier also firmly rebutted allegations leveled by Katiyar and Praveen Togadia. Even the rector of the Dar ul-Uloom, Maulana Marghub ur-Rahman, has done so, and has said that the Government must respond to and answer the specific reference that Katiyar has made with regard to the Moily Commission Report, and that the Government must take notice of Katiyar’s false and baseless allegation.

Q: But why has the Dar ul-Uloom not taken any legal action against people like Vinay Katiyar?

A: All major decisions of the Dar ul-Uloom are taken on the basis of collective consultation (shura). As far as I know, the shura committee of the Dar ul-Uloom has not deliberated on this issue. We also believe that, in contrast to the communal forces, the secular and fair-minded people of our country do not believe in these false allegations. The elders of the Dar ul-Uloom have very forcefully rebutted these hollow charges. This is for the first time that communal forces have made a reference like this to the report of a Government-appointed Commission as a basis, and that is why the Dar ul-Uloom has been demanding that the Government should make the truth about the report public, otherwise it would stain the Government’s image.

As far as Masood Azhar is concerned, he was never a student of the Dar ul-Uloom. He was released from jail by the NDA government. Top BJP leader and the then Foreign Minister, Jaswant Singh, arranged for him to be sent to Afghanistan, and Singh claimed that this was backed by the then Home Minister, Lal Krishan Advani, and on the instructions of the then NDA Cabinet.

Q: It is said that the then NDA Government took the help of an important person associated with the Dar ul-Uloom to deliver Masood Azhar to Afghanistan and to have some 200 passengers aboard a hijacked Indian airplane released, and that, following this, the Sangh Parivar launched a propaganda campaign seeking to tarnish the image of the Dar ul-Uloom by alleging that it was associated with terror. What do you say?

A: The important person you are referring to has left this world. I do not know exactly what help the then Government took from him in this regard, but I believe this cannot be the basis [of the allegations leveled against the Dar ul-Uloom]. If the Government takes the help of an important person for the sake of the country and to get innocent citizens released, how can it be used as an argument to claim that this person or the institution that he was associated with had links with terrorists […]

As I said before, this entire drama that is being enacted seeking to associate the Dar ul-Uloom with terrorism is the handiwork of America, Israel and the Sangh Parivar.

Q: On 19 December, 2008, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Security Council, Abdullah Husain Haroon, made a statement claiming that only the Dar ul-Uloom Deoband, can reign in the terrorists active in the tribal areas of North-West Pakistan because these terrorists are associated with the Deobandi school of thought. What do you have to say about this?

A: The Dar ul-Uloom strongly condemned this statement of the Pakistani Representative and demanded that Pakistan should question him and make him withdraw what he had said. This statement is also a reflection of the Pakistani Government’s consternation in the wake of the pressure that is mounting on it in the wake of the Mumbai attacks. It has tried to wriggle out of this by wrongly seeking to blame the Dar ul-Uloom, but in this has been unsuccessful. At the same time [through this wrong allegation], it has tried to mislead international opinion to believe [its claim] that it is India that is responsible for this terrorism. However, the benefit of this baseless allegation was reaped not by Pakistan but by the Sangh Parivar. Further, behind this fallacious claim of the Pakistani Representative is the long-standing resentment that Pakistan nurtures because of [the Dar ul-Uloom’s] opposition to the creation of Pakistan and the ‘two nation theory’.

Q: What do you have to say about the recent controversy that erupted in the Dar ul-Uloom surrounding the arrest of two Bangladeshi students?

A: Till date, not a single terrorist has been apprehended from the Dar ul-Uloom Deoband, contrary to the misleading propaganda of some Hindi newspapers […] At present, there are just two students from Bangladesh studying in the Dar ul-Uloom, and both have come on visas. We do not have any student studying illegally. Ever since the NDA Government placed a strict control on visas to students wishing to study in religious institutions in India, foreign students have stopped coming to the Dar ul-Uloom. In the past, students would come to Deoband from various Muslim countries and even from England and South Africa, and here they would not only gain religious knowledge but would also go back to their countries with a wealth of knowledge about India’s composite culture and our democratic and secular system. But this has stopped ever since the Ministry of External Affairs introduced strict controls on foreign students wanting to study in religious institutions in the country. If, however, the earlier policy were to be restored, the Dar ul-Uloom Deoband could serve as an effective ambassador for India in the Muslim world and even beyond, and could be a means to inform others about India’s composite culture and religiously-plural society. Leaders of the Dar ul-Uloom have repeatedly drawn the attention of the UPA Government in this regard […]

Q: Do you have any other message for readers of this interview?
A: Terrorism and communalism, I wish to tell them, are grave threats to the prosperity and peace of our country and to harmonious, brotherly relations among the different communities. We must be aware of this. Communalism and terrorism are inextricably interlinked and both are inveterate enemies of our country.

?

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Improve Your Vocabulary/ Feed Some People

At free rice.

I got up to 1600 grains before I got tired of it. Put your middle school/high school kids on there. Read More...

Free Animals of Africa Lapbook

Download it at CurrClick Read More...

Need to make a planner?

I'm in the process of making a household planner - you know, the kind with room for recipes, emergency numbers, grocery lists, etc. I just figured it would help to make things run more smoothly since we have a house full of people (mostly little people, yikes!) and time is essential. I've noticed a trend around here lately (not knowing until the last minute what to make for dinner, or lack of variety in the menu) and I want to shake things up a bit.

If you search on Google, there are plenty of sites that offer free printable pages for your own household planner, such as this one or these ideas over at Tipnut.com. And, as usual, Donna Young has plenty of forms and styles for you to ponder.

If you need some direction for making a personal planner, there is a beginner's guide for do-it-yourself planners at diyplanner.com
. Vox has provided a link to download the mind.Depositor Index Card Template. Or, you can check out David Seah, the Printable CEO. Read More...

If You're Interested....

An-Nahdah Institute is cordially inviting you to attend part 3 of its on-line presentation about the loss of the Muslim Ummah. The subject of the presentation will be the intellectual decline, focusing on the Islamic Aqeedah. In this presentation, we will discuss how Islam presented the Islamic Aqeedah and how the Sahabah believed and viewed the concept of Iman. We will also discuss how foreign ideas and methodology of thought seeped into the Islamic way of thinking, thus rendering divisions and meaningless and endless debates. Finally, what will be addressed is how the Islamic Aqeedah lost some of its fundamental features leaving it completely irrelevant-or almost.


Topic: "Loss of an Ummah: Intellectual Decline - Aqeedah"
Date: 01/11/09
Time: 7:30 PM ET/4:30 PT 12:30 GMT

http://an-nahdah.na3.acrobat.com/aqeedah/

Please join us in this discussion and invite others.

An-Nahdah Institute Read More...

Top 100 Tutorials of 2008

These are really nice. Read More...

Tips for new bloggers

Their tutorial worked a little better for me; I now have three columns.

Now to fix these colors.... Read More...

Blogger help

I found a little help for my blog today. I expanded the columns a bit and I wanted to give credit to The Blogger Guide. Read More...

Have Patience

It might look a little strange on here tonight, I am trying to change the way the blog looks. InshaALLAH it turns out the way I want. Read More...

Thinking of changing your blog colors?

I am - do you think I should bother? I get bored (as if there's nothing to do)and since I can't move the furniture around for a few more weeks, I'm studying the web color chart so that I can find the right shades.


Also, I wanted to say thank you and JazakILLAH Khair for all the kind words, du'as and well-wishes from everyone. I really thought this birth was going to be easy like my last one, but surprise! This was the hardest because of the recovery time.

I am being more active now (a little) but I certainly feel the soreness at the end of the night. Your contact made me feel a lot better during those times of quiet when the shaitaan would whisper - you know, things like, "how in the world are you going to homeschool now that this little baby is here?" ALLAH prevails.

I know of a dear, sweet sister who homeschools six of her nine children,masha'ALLAH, so surely I can find the strength to handle three of four, InshaALLAH.

I visit as many of your blogs as I can and you're all doing spectacular jobs. There is so much creativity out there and such strong resolve to mold our children into proper servants of ALLAH, masha'ALLAH. Keep up the good work!

take care! Read More...

Don't feel helpless, make du'a

Du'a is a weapon that we all can use for our brothers and sisters in Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan and those oppressed everywhere.


Narrated Abu Ma'bad, that the Prophet said, "... and be afraid of the curse of an oppressed person because there is no screen between his invocation and Allah." Sahih Bukhari: Volume 2, Book 24, Number 573.
-www.islamicawakening.com Read More...

40 Hadith Link

Forty Hadith by al-Imam al-Nawawi. Al Maghrib Institute is offering a course for learning them. Read More...