Tag: Islam

  • It’s sad to see how much time we spend trying to decide who’s kaafir and who’s not, which sects are good and which are not, that we fail to notice our own dwindling Imaan. Whenever someone boldly states that so-and-so is kaafir because of doing such and such a thing, then I am immediately reminded of the Hadeeth (if I’m not mistaken) that when one person calls another a kaafir, then one of them are!

    We look for reason to create divisions, and to raise the status of one group above another, and I can’t help but wonder if at the bottom of all this might lie the simple vices of pride and arrogance of association? We have drifted so far from applying the principles of Islam, yet we’re ready to intellectualise the practices and beliefs of others and declare in our flawed wisdom the state of their Imaan?

  • Moon and Star (Part I)

    Look at the below image, then read the prayer that follows…consider it for a while, visualise it in your head, and then answer the questions that follow:

    Diana, goddess of the Hunt

    Prayer To Diana

    Lovely Goddess of the bow!
    Lovely Goddess of the arrows!
    Of all hounds and of all hunting
    Thou who wakest in starry heaven
    When the sun is sunk in slumber
    Thou with moon upon they forehead,
    Who the chase by night preferrest
    Unto hunting in the daylight,
    With thy nymphs unto the music
    Of the horn-thyself the huntress,
    And most powerful: I pray thee
    Think, although but for an instant,
    Upon us who pray unto thee!

    1. Would you, as a Muslim, pray to this woman for your needs?
    2. Would you bow to her, at her feet, or perhaps rest your forehead on her hands in worship?
    3. From a different perspective, would you perform your salaah in a church that is still decorated with statues and crucifixes?

    If you answered ‘No’ to all the above, and I pray that you did, then why are we so complacent about praying in a masjid that has the very same symbol of this same woman proudly placed at the top of the dome and minaret, incorporated into the logos and letterheads, embellished in sand blasted designs on the glass doors and windows, and intricately woven into the designs of our musallahs/carpets? 

    There is no doubt about the origins of the moon and star in Islam. It has no place. Period! It was never used during the time of the noble prophet (SAW), nor was it used for hundreds of years after his demise. It was first used by the Ottoman army after their conquering of the city of Constantinople and it was adopted as a symbol of the army, along with the star of King Richard who was celebrated in Constantinople before the Muslims took control. 

    Before the 14th century, the crescent and star does not seem to have been associated with Islam at all, and appears in Christian iconography.[20] [21] ~ Wikipedia

    Another article worth quoting states:

    Incidentally, the ‘Golden Age of Islam’ that we all reminisce so passionately about came to a close about the mid-l5th century with the fall of Spain and the invasion of the Mongols. This was about the same time that ‘the star and crescent’ started to be hoisted up as the banner or representation of Muslims. We’ve never been able to regain that greatness again. Coincidence? ~ Rafael Narbaez Jr.

    Yet, we now have this most despicable of symbols embellishing the minarets of the most sacred sites of Islam, namely the Harams, and we have ignorant Muslims from around the world using pictures of these designs as justification for the installation of these same pagan symbols on mosques that are being built today. And during all of this, our impotent Ulama are saying that they agree that it has no place in Islam, but that they would prefer to deal with the matter subtly so as not to upset the community!

    So I ask you again, would you bow down before a cross, or a statue of Mary or Jesus?

    Then why do you bow down before a pagan goddess? Or do you believe that in this case intention outweighs practice?

  • Today in the masjid at dhuhr time, one of the men forgot to switch their mobile phone to silent, so in the middle of the salaah it rang out with a very melodiously inappropriate tone. Given how long it rang, there obviously wasn’t much urgency on the part of the man to silence it. He eventually did, and in the next rakaah it rang again…and again with little urgency to silence it. And again, just before the salaah was completed, or perhaps moments after, it rang again. And again, no urgency to silence it.

    So it was inevitable that someone would feel the need to speak out against it, at which point an elderly man sitting on a chair in the last row performing his salaah shouted out at the man asking him to switch it off and to ‘get his head sorted out’. Some found this amusing, others didn’t notice, and perhaps others, like me, found this disappointing. I wonder if either of those men realised that at that point they both had become the personification of two of the signs of the hour? One I believe is the raising of the voice in the masjid, and the other being the playing of music in the masjid. 

    But here’s the clincher for me. Both men were fully adorned in the Sunnah dress code, including traditional ‘kurta’ or cloak, head covering as well as full fist-length beards. These are supposed to be ambassadors of Islam, and representatives of Rasulullah (SAW) given their choice to imitate his appearance as closely as possible. But instead, their behaviour was anything but that. Which further affirms my contention with Muslims as having become ritualistic followers rather than true believers. 

    The same kurta-clad men are the ones that drive horribly on the roads, park people in at the masjid during Jumu’ah salaah and swindle their way through business in trying to avoid paying legitimate taxes, or trying to under cut their fellow Muslim business owners. This is of course a generalisation, but unfortunately my experiences to the contrary has been the exception, and definitely not the norm.

    This is just one of the reasons why I have packed away my own kurtas, I’ve stopped wearing specifically Islamic dress on a Friday to the office, and I maintain my beard to a length that is beyond a designer ‘face’ beard, but not quite a fist length either. And I do this deliberately and with conviction in the hope that InshaAllah I may be able to realise the principles of the teachings of our beloved Messenger of Allah (SAW), rather than to succumb to the ritualistic mockery that has overtaken the actions of too many Muslims these days. 

  • On this day of Jumu’ah it will be my second Friday in which I will deliberately avoid attending salaah at my local masjid, and instead, go to another not far from me because it is one of the few mosques in the area that is not embellished with those pagan symbols. I used to be regularly stationed in the first row right in front of the mimbar at Jumu’ah time, and I wonder if my absence will even be noted?

    Wondering about that gives me fleeting feelings of insincerity, which is one of the reasons why I stopped attending the local masjid for salaah. I know that as a matter of principle, I cannot on one hand object to the placement of the pagan symbols on the masjid, and on the other continue to attend salaah with congregation just because I don’t want people in the community to think less of me. I stay four doors away from the masjid, so this is even more difficult than usual. 

    So I’ll carve my niche in the first row of another masjid where I’m not known personally and pray that they don’t also decide at some point to decorate their structure with that vile moon and star combination that has come to represent the ritualistic stupour of Muslims around the world. Even the Haram in Makkah and Madinah is defaced with those symbols without even a peep from the Ummah. 

    Reminds me of the hypocrisy of the masses in the Arab Spring! Chanting Allahu-Akbar with every rocket and every bullet fired, and then demanding a secular government! So let’s bow our heads in prayer when worshiping Allah, raise our hands to recite the takbeer, and then prostrate beneath a dome that is adorned with the symbol of Diana, goddess of the hunt, often accompanied by her fellow kaafir King Richard whose star is also emblazoned across the flags of many a ‘Muslim’ nation. 

    Seems we’re an Ummah of Muslims, but not many Mu’min’s. May Allah save me from complacency and excess in this matter. 

  • The day we question the sincerity, intention and motivation of our own leaders as much as we question this about the western nations, that is the day that the Ummah may arise from its slumber, Insha-Allah. Until then, we will continue to follow blindly, establish our identities ritualistically, and be oblivious to the principles and logic that Islam has blessed us with. 

  • The anxiousness continues to build inside of me, while I wait to feel suitably guided on how to deal with this. I have no reason to believe that any engagement with the local Ulema will be productive given that the last time I presented proof of the despicable origins of the moon and star as symbols of Islam, they hurled verbal abuse at me, raised their voices in the masjid and dumped a calendar of pictures of mosques from Saudi in front of me as proof that the embellishment of our masjid with such symbols is acceptable in Islam.

    Subsequent to that distasteful experience, I challenged the Jamiatul Ulama on their stance around the Soccer World Cup in 2010 versus their position on the moon and star. At the time of the World Cup, they were exceptionally vociferous in their condemnation of the religious symbols that were incorporated into the logo designs for the various countries which generally represented the Christian faith, and they made a point of speaking out from the pulpit on Fridays, having publicity campaigns in the form of talk shows on radio, compiled posters for the mosque boards, and even put in significant effort in emails and on their website to raise the awareness of this apparently Kufr practice if those soccer tops were worn by Muslims.

    So I thought it was an appropriate time to raise the issue of the moon and star being incorporated into the designs of so many mosques in South Africa and the world over. I presented them with proof that the crescent symbol originated from the pagan worship of the goddess of the hunt known as Diana, and that the star was in fact the symbol of King Richard who conquered Constantinople before the Ottomans did. The invading Ottoman army saw these symbols all over the city, and because of its congruence with a dream that the leader of the army had before they entered the city, they took it as an omen of good fortune and adopted it as the symbol for their army. Being the head of the Islamic state at the time, this was quickly adopted as the symbol of Islam and not just the Ottoman army, and so was the beginning of the embellishment of the houses of Allah with these symbols of utter blasphemy!

    So after much evasiveness, the Jamiatul Ulama finally conceded that the symbols had no place in Islam, suggested that a subtle program of awareness would be adopted at some point to avoid creating consternation in the Muslim community, but they refused to respond to my questions about the disparity between their response to the soccer tops versus these symbols. That was over a year ago. To this day, I have yet to see even the semblence of an awareness campaign to highlight the fact that we worship Allah while placing our foreheads on symbols deifying Diana, or standing beneath symbols of Christianity that have been placed on our domes and minarets. And for this reason I cannot bring myself to enter that masjid again. The more I contemplate ignoring it, the more I wonder if I’m succumbing under internal pressure to be seen as a respectable Muslim in the community, and would therefore not want people to judge me wrongly for not attending salaah with congregation! But that reminds me that my intention would then be performing salaah to be seen of men, and not to sincerely worship and praise Allah.

    So I found another mosque close by that is not adorned with these symbols, and I’ve chosen to perform my Jumu’ah salaah there at least. However, in the meantime, I have resorted to performing the rest of my salaah alone in a quiet dimly lit corner of my own home, and I pray that this effort is accepted from me. But I also pray that Allah guides me towards a means to get others to realise the gravity of this evil innovation that has been adopted as an innocent embellishment of supposedly Islamic architecture.

  • The crescent and star are signs established in paganism and are not representative of Islam in any way at all. Given its pagan origins, consider what that means when you prostrate on a mat that has this symbol on it, or when you pray in a mosque that is decorated with it as its highest symbols. This is a woeful innovation that can lead to nothing but hypocrisy.

    (Source: http://www.ghazalaa.tumblr.com)

  • When Will We Awaken

    I received an e-mail from someone earlier today about a certain Dr van der Hoven from the Netherlands that supposedly did some research about the effect of reciting the word ‘Allah’ compared to the recitation of other Arabic words. This e-mail has been doing its rounds for some time now, but this time I decided to see if there was any way to determine the authenticity of this claim.

    So I Googled it and was not surprised at all by the results. The exact same article was published on numerous Islamic web sites as if it was a testament to the relevance of Islam and the truth about our way of life. I am a Muslim first and foremost, but the last time I checked, Islam taught us to verify the accuracy of information about others before we repeated it…and for good reason as well. As can be seen from this article, we’re so desperate to prove to the West that we’re on the right path and that they’re missing the point or the truth or both, that we’ll grab the tackiest piece of information without question just to satisfy our own doubts.

    Yes, doubts! We’re so doubtful about our beliefs that we search for miracles every chance we get. We need these miracles to confirm our faith, as if faith is supposed to be based on miracles that we can witness in our own time. What is wrong with us??? We went from being the greatest nation, greatest culture and most revered group of human beings to being the most punished, abused and helpless nation on earth. There was a time when everyone else imitated US! Now we’re like mad dogs looking for the scraps of the icons of the West so that we can appear to be ‘with it’ or ‘accepted’ or ‘cool’. We’ve become despicable in so many ways.

    We used to teach the world about hygiene and manners and truth…now they’re teaching us after they took the accumulated knowledge of our pious and knowledgeable predecessors and adulterated it to make it appear as if they were responsible for it. The contribution of Muslims to every great endeavour is lost to history because we have very few, if any scholars that are capable of being ranked amongst the great Muslim intellectuals of the past. We established civil societies, human rights, social and welfare structures and amazing architecture when the rest of the world was still experiencing the Dark Ages.

    What are we now? A group of weak excuses that have to resort to suicide bombings, guerilla warfare and politicing just to make a point. I respect and honour the brave Muslim men, women and children that are fighting to defend the lives that are being abused and trampled on by the corrupt politicians of the West. But that wouldn’t be necessary if we had leaders with backbone. Leaders who practised and understood the PRINCIPLES of Islam and not just the literal interpretation of the traditions and Quranic injunctions and enforced it when it suited them.

    The honourable Sahaabah (companions of the Prophet Muhammed S.A.W.) spread Islam to parts of the world that couldn’t even understand a word they said. But people saw their ways and admired what they stood for, because their behaviour was exemplary. Just the way they carried themselves was a good enough example for people to immediately realise that their way of life was superior.