Traditionalist – Islam, Law, & Spirituality

Discourses of Rumi -Discourse 69 – The Two Veils Betweeen Man and God

Between a man and God
there are just two veils, and all other veils manifest
out of these: they are health, and wealth. The man
who is well in body says, ‘Where is God? I do not
know, and I do not see.’ As soon as pain afflicts
him he begins to say, ‘O God! O God!’ communing
and conversing with God. So you see that health
was his veil, and Go was hidden under that pain.
As much as a man has wealth and resources, he procures
the means to gratifying his desires, and is preoccupied
night and day with that. The moment indigence, appears,
his spirit is weakened and he goes round about God.

   
Drunkenness and emptyhandedness brought Thee to
me;

   
I am the slave of Thy drunkenness and indigency!

God most High granted
to Pharaoh four hundred years of life and rule and
kinship and enjoyment. All that was a veil which
kept him far from the presence of God. He experienced
to a single day of disagreeableness and pain, lest
he should remember God. God said ‘Go on being preoccupied
with your own desire, and do not remember me. Goodnight!’

               
King Solomon grew weary of his reign,

               
But Job was never sated of his pain.

 

 

Notes:
‘King Solomon grew weary’: Rumi quotes himself,
see Divan,
p. 151

Fiqh of Islamic Months: The Month of Muharram

The First Month of the Islamic Calendar

Extracted from Lata’if al-Ma`arif of Imam Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali (Allah have mercy on him)

Supplication during and between the two prostrations
SunniPath Answers (http://qa.sunnipath.com)

The Wahhabi Who Loved Beauty – Karim Fenari – www.masud.co.uk

Spending three years in the desert heat of Saudi Arabia was for me a time of Ultimate Enlightenment, which raised the veil from the Umma’s most enigmatic and closely-guarded secret. Access to the Ka‘ba is relatively straightforward when compared to the challenge of grasping this secret, namely, the hidden, Manichean division in today’s Muslim world, which is not between secularisation and Islam – a relatively straightforward tension – but between normative Islam and the heresy which is its latter-day simulacrum.

 As I came to realise, understanding this schism is the key to grasping everything that is wrong with the Muslim nation today.

The Inner Dimensions of Prayer – Imam Ghazali
Source: SunniPath Answers (http://qa.sunnipath.com)

How to pray well — Hatim al-Asamm explains…

Abu Nu`aym relates in Hilyat al-Awliya [8.74], with his chain of transmission to Rabah ibn al-Harawi:

Isam ibn Yusuf passed by Hatim al-Asamm — one of the great early
masters of the spiritual path — while he was speaking to a gathering.
Isam said, “O Hatim! Do you pray well?” Hatim replied, “Yes.”

Isam asked him, “How do you pray?”

Hatim responded,

I fulfill the Divine Command;

I walk with reverent awe;

I enter the prayer with intention;

I give the opening takbir with magnification of Allah;

I recite the Qur”an in a distinct and measured recitation, with reflection;

I bow with reverence;

I prostrate with humility;

I sit for the tashahhud completely;

I give salams according to the proper way and sunna.

Then I consign the prayer to Allah (Mighty and Majestic) with
sincerity. And I return to myself in fear, fearing that the prayer will
not be accepted of me. I hold fast to this way with resolve, until
death.”

Isam said, “You can teach, for you indeed pray well.”

Darul Iftaa

I was just wondering what is Shaykh Muhammad ibn Adam’s position regarding photos….

copenhagen interpretation: Burda I

Is it your memory of tents near Dhi Salam that
draws tears wed to blood from your eyes –
the squall from Kazima,
lightning out of Idam’s umber?

And eyes, you say, enough yet they water?
Heart, you say, sense yet it soars?
The lover thinks love is hid?
What, by tears and smoking heart? [read more]

An eloquent new translation of the Burda, by Yusuf Zanella.

Two Shaykh Diya’ Renditions
At DeenPort, the Mawlid Hajji Imran contains a lively rendition (with duff) of the first two chapters of the Burda by Shaykh Diya’. Shaykh Diya’ also has a slow and very passionate rendition of these first two chapters of the Burda.

Tunisian and Maghribi and Yemeni Renditions
A Tunisian rendition of the Burda is also available at DeenPort (though curiously named “Borda”). There is also a full rendition of the Burda by a Maghribi group. This rendition is highly praised by Ustadh Tirmidhi. Another Maghribi rendition, by Moulay Touhami al-Harraq, is also available. The DeenPort News people are ga-ga over it.  The Ahbab al-Mustafa group (from Hadhramawt, Yemen) have a full rendition of the Burda, too:

Burda (Ahbab al-Mustafa) – Parts: [1]  [2]   [3]   [4]   [5]   [6]   [7]   [8]   [9]   [10]

Indian Renditions
The Altaf Brothers (Pakistan) have an Indian-style rendition of the Burda, with hadra-style background dhikr.  Sayyid Furqan Qadri has lively Indo-Pak rendition of the Burda, also with hadra-style background.  Qari Waheed Zafar’s rendition of the Burda is one of the ‘classic’ Indo-Pak recitations of the Burda. It was the first one I ever heard. Muhammad Owais Qadri’s rendition is sublime. Other renditions by him are also available. Fasihuddin Sohrawardi’s rendition moves the heart and soul. Imam Jilani, of High Wycombe Mosque, has this rendition, hosted on Sidi Mas’ud Khan’s site.

Imam Hamza’s contributions
Zaytuna Institute & Academy has a beautiful documentary (video) on Introducing the Burda of al-Busiri. It features Imam Hamza Yusuf, Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad, and others:

RealPlayer:   Low | High
QuickTime:  Low | High

The Alhambra Productions has The Burda, with a full translation by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, and a powerful rendition by the Fez Singers. Beautiful.

The Way of Sunni Islam – A Reader

What do the scholars such as Shaykh Hamza Yusuf
and Shaykh Nuh Keller (may Allah ta’ala bless and preserve them) mean
when they refer to “traditional Islam”?

Whose opinion is given precedence in the child’s upbringing: the mother or the father?  Answered by Fareeha Khan

The duty of caring for children and providing
them with a good upbringing is one that falls upon both the father and
the mother. The parents are responsible for taking care of their
children’s religious as well as worldly needs, and it is up to both of
them to try and protect their children from harm. [read more]

Adhan by a young boy

Is the Adhan performed by a young boy (one who as not reached puberty) proper and acceptable, or must one repeat the Adhan? [read reply]

More Women than Men in Hell? – SunniPath Answers (http://qa.sunnipath.com)

More Women than Men in Hell?
Answered by Ustadha Zaynab Ansari

I came across this Hadith and was very disheartened… [read more]

Hashf al-Mahjub | Mawlana Ali al-Hujwiri (Data Ganj-Baksh) – Great Imams of Sufism

Concerning Their Imams Who Lived Subsequently To The Followers (Al-Tabi`In) Down To Our Day
[read more]

Abd al-Ghani Nabulsi – Ustadha Umm Sahl

Source: www.Masud.co.uk

[Shaykh] Nuh and I, on the other hand, take a more traditional stand, believing that any Islamic science should first be read with a specialist in that field in order to correctly understand the terminology and issues related to that subject, and that without this process one is likely to make mistakes in ones understanding. Sufism is one of the easiest areas to make mistakes in since it is principally concerned with spiritual experience and the means to attaining to it. Since this
goal of Sufism is not confined to the realm of our day to day lives, defining
this experience in words is hardly understandable except with training in this science and is the reason that many great scholars like Sheikh `Abd al-Ghani have sometimes been misunderstood in the history of Islam by a sector of scholars who have not associated with the Sufis or learnt from them.

I hope here to reply to Akram’s article point by point, and in doing so I hope it
will become apparent that Sheikh `Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi was not a man of “Satanic heresies,” as Akram suggests, but rather one of the great figures in the history of our religion. I also hope to illustrate that simply knowing Arabic is not a sufficient qualification to discuss and criticize the Islamic sciences in the same way that knowing English is not enough to contribute to understanding the disciplines of medicine, physics and engineering, and in fact taking such an attitude does more harm than good. And our success is only through Allah, we turn to Him for help and ask Him for an increase in guidance and knowledge.

[ read more ]

SunniPath Library – Hadith – Al-Adab al-Mufrad al-Bukhari – General Behaviour

888. Az-Zuhri reported that a man from Bali said, “I came to visit the
Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, with my father. My
father spoke to him while I was not there. I said to my father, ‘What did he say
to you?’ He replied, ‘When you desire something, then you must proceed slowly
until Allah shows you a way out of it or until Allah makes a way out for you.’”

[read on]

Confusion on Limits to talking to the opposite sex

Confusion on Limits to talking to the opposite sex

Answered by Ustadha Zaynab Ansari

Turning Sex into Sadaqa – SunniPath Answers (http://qa.sunnipath.com)
Excerpt from ‘The Muslim Marriage Guide’, By Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood (Amana Publications)

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful & Compassionate

There is well-established scholarly consensus (ijma`) that missed obligatory prayers must be made up. [Nawawi, al-Majmu`]

See:

Scholarly Consensus on Making-Up Past Missed Prayers

Not Making Up Missed Prayers: Is it an option?

Nawawi on making up missed prayers: scholarly consensus

My Mother has 30 Years of Prayers to makeup: Can she make the expiatory payments instead?

Missed Prayers

Missed Prayers: Hanbali Dispensation?

The Fiqh Of Menstruation
A Reader from SunniPath Answers (http://qa.sunnipath.com)

The basis of the rulings of menstruation is submission to the Divine Command. Allah has commanded us to submit to Him not only through actions but also through prohibitions.

And, as Shaykh Adib Kallas would put it, “The actions of the Wise are never bereft of wisdom.”

The Menstruation reader.

Reading questions relating to intimacy – Actions: Motives and Consequences

Related answers:
Important Basics: Intentions, Sustaining them, Prophetic Guidance, Asking, and Learning
Explaining the Four Keys to Success

SunniPath Answers (http://qa.sunnipath.com)

Dua for love and respect in marriage
Answered by Ustadha Zaynab Ansari
SunniPath Answers (http://qa.sunnipath.com)

My niece has nightmares
SunniPath Answers (http://qa.sunnipath.com)

Source: SunniPath Answers (http://qa.sunnipath.com)

Understanding the Sinlessness of Prophets and their “Reprimand” in the Qur’an
Source: SunniPath Answers (http://qa.sunnipath.com)

It is from obligatory Islamic belief that the Prophets were trustworthy and preserved from sin.

The classical definition of amana (trustworthiness), which relates to `isma (being preserved from sin) is:

“Allah Most High preserving the Prophets from falling into that which has been prohibited,” as explained by the commentators of the Jawhara. [Tattan/Kaylani, `Awn al-Murid `ala Jawharat al-Tawhid, 2.727; also: Bajuri, Tuhfat al-Murid]
[read more....]

The Science of Hadith: An Introduction
Source: SunniPath Answers (http://qa.sunnipath.com)