The Bismillah Rhyme (2005, Excerpt)

Bismillah! The buds now burst into hues unimaginable;
Flowery nerves fattening up by the blessing of our Lord.
Wondrous things to perform; not on stage, not on stand
But in nooks of cooler sand; the plant now whorls
Into our worlds, waltzing to the poet's carts - Shakespeare carts -
We're all poets at the heart - lug them up the dusty path.
The clouds must hold our pain till we've reached home!
To the sun's veil we cling, slipping to the evening again.

Bismillah! What better rhyme can I offer than this?
In all things of nature, God's signs are seen.
In dark, in murk, in light, in grace, in every space
That you hold to yourself from me and the rest.
But we dwell together in this Earth as brothers and sisters...
Here's a rose for the sweetest, the pious and mildest
That sprang from the soil of a poet's heart.
I might as well repeat the round: we're all poets at the heart.

Bismillah! Come child, sit with me and pray
For your mother, father, brother, sister and friend
Who love you more than you hope they do!
They kneel in humility and pray for you
Every day, when you step into the impulsive world
Raise that head that springs from you and look,
Look at all those things around, and roll your eyes round and round
At sky, at sea, at grass, at bee (don't go very near the bee)!


Photo by Taylor Miles

Selflessness

But he would not try to ascend the steep uphill road... And what could make thee conceive what it is, that steep uphill road? [It is] the freeing of one's neck [from the burden of sin], or the feeding, upon a day of [one's own] hunger, of an orphan near of kin, or of a needy [stranger] lying in the dust and being, withal, of those who have attained to faith, and who enjoin upon one another patience in adversity, and enjoin upon one another compassion.

~ The Qur'an, Al-Balad (The Land), Verses 11-17

Eid Mubarak!

Eid Mubarak to all the dear Muslim brothers and sisters on God's earth, who are the Ummah. May the One bless and guide us through our adversities, journeys, bliss, awakening, and sleep. May we all remember the favours of our Maker. May the people of Pakistan affected by the terrible calamity know ease after suffering, may we open our hands and hearts to aid them. May the Muslims in the United States be given the rights of citizens and not aliens.

May the non-Muslim brethren suffering around the world know ease after suffering. May we heed the Prophet's, peace be upon him, command: "Feed the hungry and visit the sick, and free the captive if he be unjustly confined. Assist any person oppressed, whether Muslim or non-Muslim." As the esteemed scholar Muhammad Asad reminded, Muslims are ethically bound to cooperate with people of other faiths and even those without faith because we must convey the teachings of God to those around us before it's too late. And that can be done by being true. But as the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said: "No man is true in the truest sense of the word but he who is true in work, in deed, and in thought."

May Almighty Allah bless us all. May He guide those astray, and may He strengthen those who follow the truth or something close to it. God knows best, and He gave us, the Ummah, this most special day. Eid Mubarak!

His is the Universe and Everything in It

His is the bluebottle flower and His is the sea-down turtle. And I’m just a quiet letter in the whirling wheel of Creation.

O how the world is filled with the sermons of the Lord, taught through the human tongue of the prophets, His limitless transcending mortal bounds. None can know but what He permits, and He has permitted all that man can imagine. How the unbeliever’s heart pounds in the worship of the Lord, thus how unbelievable the denial. From the moment of the first arrow of reason airborne, man is in awe of the rolling wave of existence!

O Lord, I know that every worm that shall mine out of me crumbs and every mossy shower that shall entomb will answer Thy Way. Never leave me to the crowds for now.

By Thy leave I’m a servant humbled by knowledge, each bolt of Revelation lowering me until I dwell in Nothingness and nothing still.

By Thy leave I’m a servant with a book; may I earn it in my right hand. Will not the arrogant grieve, those who scoff at the barefooted water-carriers?

O Lord, man’s love for Thou is edifying, and all the rest is of the self. By Thy leave, may my path be built upon the former.

Yet Thou grant portions of near solace between us. O but if we looked beside: that's all to be found. Thou art the Most Gracious, the Dispenser of Grace. In the Daybreak and in the Mantled Hours, in Thy remembrance, my being (the littlest letter Thou willed to be) doth abide.


Photo by Christopher Thomas

Give charity without delay, for it stands in the way of calamity.

The Prophet also said: "Give charity without delay, for it stands in the way of calamity." - Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 589


"They ask thee what they should spend (In charity). Say: Whatever wealth ye spend that is good, is for parents and kindred and orphans and those in want and for wayfarers. And whatever ye do that is good, - Allah knoweth it well." 2.215
　

After a long time in exile, I went back to Somalia in 2005 to see my father for the first time in fourteen years. It was a heartfelt reunion: I had grown up; he had grown older. But there was nothing much I could find to say to him. I had mixed emotions: I was frightened yet excited to meet and get to know relatives who I did not know before.
My father often had visitors in the afternoon, most of them long term friends. Some of them were internally displaced and had no income. Although not in a great position to help others financially, my father always shared the money sent to him by his children (us). I noted my father's particular care to his old friends as much as his relatives.


There was one man who would never ask for help but came to my father's house each week. He was pleasant. He had lost his family in the war and later remarried. He had two young sons. I got to know him better. As there were other people asking for financial help, I hardly had any money left, so was incapable of providing him with any financial support. I got back to London. But his face stuck out in my memory. Subsequently, I sent him $50 through my father. My father took it as a gesture of genorosity. No, I did it for myself ---to lift my sadness about the man‘s plight. Yes, selfish (we help others to help ourselves in whatever way you look at it).
A year later I went back to Somalia again. I saw the man, charming as ever. He visited just as we (my father and I) were about to depart to the airport. I had $20, which I divided between him and a cousin of mine, Abdullahi. The man informed me that he was recently diagnosed with Hipatius, and that he would insha'Allah be cured if he purchased the medication. He said the $10 would do it. I wished him all the best.
I made a promise to myself that I would send some money to the man and to my cousin Abdullahi as soon as I got back to London and started working. In February 2007 news reached me that my cousin had been killed in the outskirt of Kismayo. Sadness overtook me for a while, but life had to go on. I never stopped wanting to send money to the man. I had to save it. Meanwhile, my father fled the country to Nairobi, Kenya. Although I kept telling my mother that I saw so and so man ( she knew him) and that I would like to send him $100 for medication, I barely made a concious effort to find him...until one day. I telephoned my father and asked the whereabouts of the man. He replied: ’I will enquire about him’. It took him about a month to find out any information. Sadlly, the man had passed away a few months earlier.

Had I tried harder to send him the money, I would not have felt so guilty about not acting quickly enough. Had I not bought that expensive perfume, perhaps I would have been able to save the $100 earlier.

While I cannot turn the clock back, I learnt to act quickly and timely. I may not be able to help everyone but I try to be charitable in my voice.


‘’Kind words and the covering of faults are better than charity followed by injury. Allah is free of all wants, and He is Most Forbearing.’’


Al-Baqara ( The Cow) 2:263.

Sometimes I miss my prayer...

Sometimes I miss my prayer, Fajr or Isha, but though I pray it afterward or even at days lone feel troubled to let the last go, I know that it is through prayer that I take comfort in Almighty Allah. Its absence, the Prophet, peace upon him, reminded has a clear symptom:

He whom prayer preventeth not from wrongdoing and evil, increaseth in naught save in remoteness from the Lord.

Much of the time I contemplate. And how sweet and sad is contemplation! The Prophet, peace be upon him, said: "An hour's contemplation is better than a year's adoration", and "One hour's meditation on the work of the Creator is better than seventy years of prayer". But I know the reflection would be stronger if I missed no prayer at all!

Knowledge & Apostasy

This is the most excellent essay I have yet read on the subject of apostasy. Those of us who have sought to cultivate our conscience through the Book of God may have experienced cognitive dissonance when God's Word is disregarded in favour of historical interpretations.

It is unfortunate that we give greater importance to certain ahadith conflicting with the Qur’anic values and thus bring bad name to Islam. Commitment to these values is far more important than to opinion of the ‘Ulama based on medieval ethos.

The only problem with this article though is that while correcting Mawdudi's weird thesis on apostasy the author expresses his surprise at "how an Islamic scholar of Mawdudi’s status can confuse things to such an extent...." Any right-minded Muslim who has researched Mawdudi's worldview, notably critiqued in a study by Sheila McDonough, will only have loathing for him. Mawdudi was merely a Muslim version of V.R.Savarkar, and viewed Islam as a political state programmed to express its frustration at colonialism by oppressing others. Another similarity they share is a zest for revolutionary beliefs after the withdrawal of the British Empire.

It is my view that Muhammad Asad's critique of the concept of revolution from the Islamic standpoint in his 1948 work The Principles of State and Government in Islam, which would be revisited in his future projects, is the earliest of its kind and is an indirect reference to Mawdudi's thesis. Asad would also live through the so-called Islamic revolution in Iran, witnessing the growth of the movement. "Islamisation" here was nothing short of intellectual dishonesty, a form of cultural realisation and of authoritarian control over Muslims. In these states women were invisible and difference of opinion was not tolerated. In short, Islam itself was curtailed in the name of Islam. The irony was impossibly crude.

In contrast, Islam inspires God's unceasing teachings and mercy, uplifting man to a level which he attains through His belief in the One God accompanied by good works which rescinds the first and only response of the angels to Almighty Allah on His declaration to "establish upon the earth one who shall inherit it" (The Second Chapter, Verse 30):

They said: "Wilt Thou place on it such as will spread corruption thereon and shed blood - whereas it is we who extol Thy limitless glory, and praise Thee, and hallow Thy name?"

Almighty Allah answers:

"Verily, I know that which you do not know."

In the thirty-third verse of the tenth chapter of His Book, Almighty Allah says unto man:

It is God [alone] who guides unto the truth. Which, then, is more worthy to be followed - He who guides unto the truth, or he who cannot find the right way unless he is guided? What, then, is amiss with you and your judgment?

May we believe so, and may He save us from the fitnah of group-thought and cult worship and open us to critical intelligence and the Light we merit. Also, the Prophet repeated thrice that "the worst of men is a bad learned man...." May He grant us religious scholars at whose death the Ummah is poorer, those who seek to benefit the Ummah by being true to the message of Allah and are/were true in their opinions. This also means avoiding the invention of ethnocentric commentaries on Islam. On a Ramadan night four years ago, the Yemeni Muslim historian Al-Shaiba issued a lecture in which he pointed out such flaws.

He added that among the best companions of the prophet (PBUH) were Bilal (Ethiopian), Salman (Persian), Suhaib (Roman)—and the list goes on. Al-Shaiba criticized Arab historians for perpetuating stereotypes and writing boring narratives. They wrote some legends, according to their sectarian and/or political backgrounds. Jarallah added that most of Arab historians limit themselves to their geographical locations, giving only a partial sense of the whole heritage. “Many Arab historians wrote about the life-story of the prophet (PBUH) almost similarly, but they have clear differences when they write about the aftermath.

"That’s why the Islamic history did not develop,” al-Shaiba said. “All of that passed through us as a sacred heritage, to which Arab and Muslim historians remain bound even today.” Arab and Muslim historians and researchers should be able to question that heritage, making use of what is useful and ignoring the rest, said the Sana’a University professor in a bombshell statement. “We should believe in dialogue and respect others’ opinions,” he said.

In the words of the Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace:

Verily God doth not taketh away knowledge from the hands of His servants; but taketh it by taking away the learned; so that when no learned men remain, the ignorant will be placed at the head of affairs. Causes will be submitted to their decision, they will pass sentence without knowledge, will err themselves, and lead others into error.

Love and Fear

I was just thinking of the harmony between the two ways which define humankind's relationship to God in the Qur'an while walking back to my room from the laundry: love and fear. I was not the only one. The scholar Ahmad Kutty answers: "As servants of Allah, we must entertain love and hope in Allah with fear of His wrath, for Allah is Most Merciful and Compassionate and He is also Stern in punishment. Fear alone, without hope, is not recommended, just as hope alone, without fear, is not recommended."

So well spoken.

Polygamy

It is hardly one of the most contested debates in Muslim theology - the uses and misuses of polygamy. However, many independent minded Muslims have often found themselves at odds with traditional theology, unsurprisingly because it terminated approximately in the 10th century, and much of what we call tradition is a rehash of the opinions of dead scholars. Those familiar with the format of a fatwa are obviously aware of how scholars of the past are constantly dredged up to answer for the present. This blind piety for dead scholars, to whom we surely owe our respect, is nothing short of intellectual laziness. They would themselves have been horrified at the application of their time-bound thought in the modern world which has witnessed the carving up of monocultural forts into multicultural nation states. In This Law of Ours, the exceptional Muslim thinker Muhammad Asad documents the collapse of critical thought engendered in the first few generations after the Prophet Muhammad's, peace be upon him, death.

It does not seem to have occurred to them [religious scholars] that however great those "early generations" of Muslim scholars might have been, later times might bring forth intellects of equal brilliance which would have at their disposal not only all the material and all the scholarly apparatus which had been available to the "early generations" but would have, in addition, a greater amount of historical, psychological and scientific experience on which to draw. [Pg 58]

On the subject of polygamy itself, was it not the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, himself who confronted Ali on his decision to take another wife? This had caused Lady Fatima much distress. Any person who single-mindedly argues that all men have the divine right to take more wives has ignored a very basic premise i.e. empathy. There is nothing black and white about the injunctions in Islam, every rule must be contemplated. For example, the Qur'an's egalitarian refrain to protect the rights of widows, orphans and the poor is ironically demolished when it is precisely those that are singled out by the so-called jury in countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan for hudud (capital punishment). Tariq Ramadan has rightly called for a moratorium on this issue. This does not pander to the pejorative of evolutionary progress but sheds lights on the authoritarian misuse of Islamic Law, the purpose of which is to spread justice and not oppression. This is not giving up Islam but reclaiming its original creativitiy and humanity from totalitarian theorists like Maududi. Fazlur Rahman indicated that the basic imperative of the Qur'an is that the individual should cultivate his or her own conscience. That's certainly much closer to the theme than Maududi's refusal to concede that there is something more to Islam than his interpretation of it...the interpretation that is based on the non-Islamic concept of revolution rather than the measureless compassion and mercy of the Lord of the Worlds toward mankind.

Tall Towers

It's in today's news that Barj Dubai is now the tallest man-made structure ever. One of the signs of the Hour, as the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) related, is that shepherds will start building tall towers. This should not be understood as a religious derision of the achievements of the desert Arabs to whom it particularly refers to, for achievements of man are commendable. Rather it is a very literal prophecy. Muslims who have criticised the superfluous building constructions in Mecca have used this narration to attack the Saudi establishment. This has been a traditionalist critique, which is quite valid, but short of looking at the effect this may have on local, small industries. In fact, the latter should be the primary concern. In the Dubai case, however, it is intended to attract tourism. On the other hand, the first argument unwittingly implies that faith is a treasured past which is being intruded upon by modernity. As such, faith becomes a relic, an identity rather than a timeless message from God. What's for sure is that the competition to build tall buildings is proof that humanity, indeed the entire earth, is in a new age which will lead to the Last Hour. Only God has the knowledge of its exact time and occurrence.

God separates the wheat from the chaff

Ah, woe unto worshippers
Who are heedless of their prayer;
Who would be seen (at worship)
Yet refuse small kindnesses!

- Al-Maun (4-7) , Qur'an

The Most Irrelevant Question

In my view, the most irrelevant question we ask each other is: "Where are you from?"

My friend Ibrahim and I have never asked each other that. We are different colours but one race: human. We first met in the wudu room. I really feel the love on this one. It's that calm feeling of belief. It's who you are that matters and you only get it right if you don't have any reservations about your sister marrying this guy. It's who he is that counts: a God-fearing, good-natured person. All Ramadan he has been coming one hour early, for the sake of Allah, to arrange for our food and seating. This is not to say my sister is marrying Ibrahim but I pray she'll meet such a person. These are the jewels God has strewn -- to make it easier for the rest.

Vegetarianism & Compassion

I am thinking of turning to vegetaranism or something close to it. I feel that the meat industry is against the teachings of Islam and the conscience. No, Islam does not prohibit eating meat, but the Last Prophet "has placed the killing of animals without a justifiable reason as one of the major sins".

Animals in Islam

Avoid ye the seven obnoxious things {deadly sins}: polytheism; magic; the killing breathing beings! Which God has forbidden except for rightful reason. (Narrated by Abu Huraira. Sahih Mulim - Kitab-ul-Imam (Ref. No. 46); Chapt. XXXIX, Vol.I; p. 52. Bukhari, 4:23. Also Awn, (Ref. No. 32); Hadith No. 2857.

The continual killing of animals as a food supply -- and the outward manifestation of faith lacking the particular teaching within Muslim circles is rather stupefying. Despite Islam's emphasis on good treatment of animals, Muslims -- like Christians and everybody else -- can be observed "living off " the suffering of animals. We are only allowed to eat meat in moderation. Now we have turned animals into an industry. This is what happens when you do that:

Action of the Month

Desperately sick and injured pigs were discovered at Longerong piggery with no attempt made to provide them with veterinary assistance. Footage of a moribund pig with thousands of maggots crawling out of a wound has shocked even the most experienced animal advocates.

This is happening at a piggery in Tasmania, and it's happening to all animals worldwide. In Islam we are fortunate to have the rules but there has been no application of those rules -- in fact, it is no coincidence that some of the Muslim countries that sell themselves out for being "Islamic" while breaking every single rule and enforcing twisted interpretations that directly target women, for one, do not enforce these basic yardsticks of faith, even a twisted one.

Also:

Our Holy Prophet(s)'s overwhelming concern for animal rights and their general welfare would certainly have condemned (La'ana) those who practice such methods (factory farming), in the same way as he condemned similar other cruelties in his days. He would have declared that there is no grace or blessing (Brakah) - neither in the consumption of such food nor in the profits from such trades.

As the meat certainly comes from factories, even Muslim ones, I think there is enough reason to go green. What do you think?

On a side-note: Regarding pigs, Dr. Rajab Abu Mleeh, Shari `ah consultant at Islamonline.net website, states that "we are required to show mercy to this animal and not to cause it pain or harm. Indeed, it did not commit any fault or offence. Rather, it is an animal which glorifies Almighty Allah Who has created it whereby to test us and see which of us is best in deeds..."

Related Post: Food for Thought by Tim.

Don't Be Sad

Kindness in Islam/Views on the Taliban/A Message of Peace

There are a group of Muslims - fanatical, tribalist, nationalist - that are in the habit of telling other Muslims that they are not following Islam, and they're a general offence in the sense that they spread hatred and violence against non-Muslims. The most extreme example of this group is the Taliban: long bearded, short-sighted, fascist to say the least. And the most common trait of this group is that they are unkind. Seriously, you'll hear of them beating women, throwing acid into the faces of girls who want to get an education, torturing boys and men. In short, the Taliban and its like-minded followers love nothing more than raping humanity. In the Islamic view, if you show inhumanity and unkindness to others, you don't have faith. You have lost it. There is one thing that is fundamentally incompatible with Islam: inhumanity. Islam's last prophet, Muhammad (peace be upon him), has said: "Kindness is a mark of faith: and whoever hath not kindness hath not faith." How universal: "All God's creatures are His family; and he is the most beloved of God who doeth most good to God's creatures." How significant: "Who is the most favored of God? He from whom the greatest good cometh to His creatures." How lovely: "What actions are most excellent? To gladden the heart of a human being, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, and to remove the wrongs of the injured." How wise: "Verily, God is mild, and is fond of mildness, and he giveth to the mild what he doth not to the harsh".

It will be hard for many non-Muslims to recognise Muhammad's voice in these messages - with his lament for God's creatures. But that's how it is. That's how he was. He was not like what the Danish cartoonists or Orientalist fantasists made him out to be or what al-Zawahiri makes himself out to be. The Prophet was not just an important figure in Islam but a great figure of humanity. By concentrating solely on the wars he fought against people who wished to kill him (and then blame him for their moral weaknesses) or making the Prophet a perfect deity of sorts - such as the false mystical belief that he was the first act of creation and a sort of inspiration for what followed - we do our faith a great injustice. We need the Prophet's words more than ever. He walked on earth and taught his brothers and sisters because he was human. Especially now that we find men in religious robes using a vulgar image of Islam to destroy the societies around them, brutalising countless innocent people.

We must listen to the Last Prophet (and the Prophets before him); to educated, intelligent Muslims; to wisdom and knowledge; to share our common legacy with all of God's creatures; to honour God (for to honour God you must first love your fellow man).

We don't need senseless violence; sectarian strife; terrorist atrocities against Muslims and non-Muslims; and trivialising "the West" as a darkened place of mere material longing (which is the sister of Orientalism: Occidentalism). Separating the world into the pure and impure is itself unacceptable. Who decides that? Good and bad people are dispersed in every land. There is nothing like "Islam and the West" in Islam. It's all God's beautiful earth. Do they ever pause by a rolling river or a mist-covered mountain? They madly say it's just "science". Respect others! Moreover, in Islam there is no room "for revolution, only evolution" (Muhammad Asad).

Let kindness be our first step, let faith be our heart's rest, let the conscience be the staff in our hands and let the everlasting rainbow of God - stretched from the East to the West, North to the South - humble us...before we say an unkind word or lift a callous hand to strike another human being. One day all of us will return to God and answer Him for what we said and did. It is the choice each one of us must make: to either be on the side of what's good or what's prohibited.

There is no system of honour killing or concept of revenge killings or holy war in Islam. "What the West did" is a popular refrain. I dare al-Qaeda to say this truly, for it has itself partaken in the retardation and destruction of decent Muslim societies. Muslims must address their own history of colonialism and distance themselves from the vain glories of the past. They must emulate the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), not the time in which he preached. Islam must not be confused with Jahiliyah, which is what the Prophet fought against. We must fight against it, too.

We must first build an ethical, God-fearing house, because it is well-known that murder and debauchery do not breed faith. They are an abuse of faith.

It's the Prophet Muhammad against the Taliban. It's Islam and humanity against superstitions, barbarity and thoughtlessness. And may the Taliban perish with the ashes it beholds for our future. May we fight them and regain the golden sands of learning, reason and knowledge. Where God is worshipped in peace, for that's what Islam means.

Monotheism

God is the only one we may serve and praise....We may not act in this way toward anything beneath God, whether it be an angel, a star, or one of the elements.....There are no intermediaries between us and God. All our prayers should be directed towards God; nothing else should even be considered.

- Maimonides

Note: Anything that diverges from this is not monotheism. No prophet or pope or saint possesses the honour of Almighty Allah.

''Making the coastal areas lucrative for local fishermen again could encourage pirates to return to legitimate livelihoods' It is all about justice

''
''Beyond the immediate need to temporarily send warships to police the troubled waters, a coalition force tasked with fishery protection should be deployed. It could be done under the auspices of the United Nations, African Union, or a coalition of willing states.
This option will address a root cause of the piracy problem, rob the modern-day buccaneers of their legitimacy, and be more acceptable to the region as an enduring part of the solution.
First, this option will address the very problem that originally sparked this rise in piracy. The problem of piracy in Somalia originated about a decade ago because of disgruntled fishermen.
The headless state had no authority to patrol its tuna-rich coastal waters and foreign commercial vessels swooped in to cast their nets. This proved a slap in the face for Somalis, who saw these vessels as illegal and raking in profits at the expense of the local impoverished population. To make matters worse, there were reports that some foreign ships even dumped waste in Somali waters.''
www.csmonitor.com

• Katie Stuhldreher is a graduate student at the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University, where she's currently researching Somali piracy.

The Many Salafisms

Yes, I know what you must be thinking: misogynist, arrogant and supremacist. This in fact is the dreary picture painted by the sociologist Riaz Hassan in his book Inside Muslim Minds of what he labels "Salafibism". Fortunately, mortal muse is never that wholly encompassing of truth. Take for example the Muhammadiyah Association. Reporter Amy McQuire who toured East Timor and Indonesia with the Asia Pacific Journalism Centre in July came into contact with Muhammadiyah, the second largest Muslim group in Indonesia. What did she find? That it runs hospitals and schools in urban, regional and remote Indonesia. And "it does not discriminate in providing services to all sectors of society. Muhammadiyah also has an active women’s branch called Aisyiyah, which is involved in several charitable works aimed at empowering women."

All this good from a group which if we have been told is an inherently evil form of expression colluding with sectarian fantasists of old?

From the Muhammadiyah website:

On 25th May 1957 a group of students from Madrasah Raudatil Atfal and students of the late Ustaz Abdul Rahman Harun, Ustaz Rijal Abdullah and Ustaz Amir Esa had organized an Eid Adha Hari Raya Gathering. In that gathering the students had unanimously agreed to strengthen their group and officially established a Sunnah/Salafi movement in Singapore.

I'd argue there is nothing uncommon about a humane, tolerant Salafism. Just like there are many Sufisms, there are many Salafisms. Some of them are dubious, some of them are not. The routine mutual slander (as occurs on the blogosphere) is neither here nor there. Moreover, an individual humanity supersedes prejudice.

The task of a contemporary Muslim, in my view, is also to struggle with labels and meanings. In order to achieve that, we must first emotionally distance ourselves from group-thought, and then, come to common terms.

I'd like to voice my own personal disagreements with a lot of what is established, but it'll probably cause more division. I have come to the realisation that dialogue and everything sounds good but at the end of the day we're going to disagree. Let us live together and clog the hurt. Sectarianism is one of the biggest problems facing Muslims.

It doesn't help when Irfan Yusuf blames all terrorism on the "Wahhabis". There is more to it and more to a range of a peoples than meets the eye. Terrorism, in fact, is the legacy of Sayyid Qutb who subscribed to the colossal Leninist irony that killing of innocents on whatever scale is justified in a quest for earthly utopia. This ideology lies at the heart of Al-Qaeda's error: "there is no hope". The actions of terrorists suggests that God is unable to govern with fairness and permits debauchery and killing in the service of depraved, elitist maniacs. Certainly not the God of Islam. Not the God of man. In Islam triumph is always of unrelenting faith, of good, of meekness, of patient labour and of small kindnesses.

Salafis, Sufis and Shias must stop fighting and start building.

We are mortals, of course, balancing immortal revelations. Separated by land and sea and culture and viewpoints. Yet, there is no excuse for slander.

If Things Must Change...

I just read a disturbing story of a thirteen-year-old Somali girl who was raped and then -- by a form of twisted logic -- stoned to death by "Islamic militants". There is no denying that the judges were Muslims acting in the name of Islam. Once again, we must look at this news from a different angle first. Somalia has been invaded by Ethiopia at the behest of the United States. This report like all others also serves as a propaganda by Uncle Sam as it tries to incriminate the enemy. You can bet your bottom dollar that Ethiopia has been stoning teenage girls as well, but you never hear of that as it besmirchs the status quo. The establishment feels no sensitivity toward the rape victim. It is merely to garner outrage from the public.

For those who sincerely care about incidents like these (divested from politics) in Muslim countries, there is one solution. Islam has witnessed the death of the "activist scholar", those knowledgeable Muslims who championed the causes of the poor and disfranchised. Instead, a scholar now speaks what the congregation wants to hear. Muslims are now indulging in lashing out at others for their misfortunes. This has given rise to progressive groups and other groups sunk in the quagmire of tradition in response to the literalists, all of them unable to seize the spirit of classical Islam. Hence, now is a need for scholars to speak up against the thousands of cases of injustice against thirteen-year-old girls like Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow. Islam can only move forward with the participation of conscientious scholars. I even believe that if all the scholars in Iraq united and condemned the sectarian violence, Iraq would be free. Islam has been let down by effective leadership.

Islam Tonight (Ramadan Mubarak)

All of them lie in sleep
Except her, for whom it is Islam tonight.
Sitting so pure and demure
With the Qur’an on her palms.

All of them lie in sleep
When the stars are in the eyes to keep.
A naughty storm in the dark;
Not long, angels chase it away.

All of them lie in sleep.
She declares her faith in her heart.
Allah hears and comforts her.
Tears come to her very eyes.

All of them lie in sleep.
Sister Fatima rises and kneels.
She is now among the believers
Whom Allah guided to His path.