Tag: sincerity

  • newsflick:

    Muslims to NYPD: ‘Respect us, we will respect you’

    Hundreds of Muslims prayed in a lower Manhattan park and marched to New York Police headquarters Friday to protest a decade of police infiltrating mosques and spying on Muslim neighborhoods.

    Bundled in winter clothes, men and women knelt as the call to prayer echoed off the cold stone of government buildings. 

    “Being Muslim does not negate our nationality,” Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid told the crowd of about 500 gathered in Foley Square, not far from City Hall and local courthouses. “We are unapologetically Muslim and uncompromisingly American.” (source)

    Alhamdulillah…this is encouraging to see that Muslims are finally snapping out of that apologetic and victim state of mind, and finally starting to stand up and prove to the world that we’re not the sum total of the propaganda in the western media, nor are we accurately reflected in the actions of those that use Islam to pursue their own political and personal interests. 

  • she is modesty.

    saraharaha:

    wordswoman:

    I want to fall in love

    with a woman

    who has honest eyes

    and a smile

    that spreads slow enough

    for me to know

    that she has no idea

    how incredibly beautiful

    she is.

    yep, going to reblog this every time I see it on my dash!

  • Purpose of Debate

    I once heard that the point of a debate should be to arrive at the truth and not to prove you’re right. This is something I fully subscribe to, but also forget often. After reflecting on some of my posts recently, especially in this blog, I believe that I have been blurring these very same lines in my tone and focus. I sometimes try to prove why others are wrong or why I’m more right, when in fact the focus of this blog, as my first post suggested, was to be an articulation of my struggle to come to terms with what I find distasteful around me, and in turn to formulate my own views based on principles that I subscribe to, and not views that may have been indoctrinated into me. 

    Whether or not I agree with the atheistic views, or even what exception I take to the traditional/ritualistic Muslims should remain a point of reference as to why I choose the views and opinions that I hold, but should not go as far as trying to convince them that they’re wrong. The Qur’an sums it up beautifully in Chapter 17, verse 81:

    And say: Truth has come and falsehood has vanished away. Lo! Falsehood is ever bound to vanish.

    Some may interpret this to be Muslim arrogance, yet others, if seen objectively, would acknowledge it as confirmation that whichever party is on the true path, this will become self-evident, and therefore there should be no need to shove our views down anyone’s throats. 

    So I hope that I will remain focused in presenting my views not at the expense of others, but rather relative to others only. Context is important, but it should never be used as an excuse to bash any other religion, philosophy, or personal perspectives. Which reminds me of another pertinent verse from the Qur’an in Chapter 18, verse 10:

    Our Lord! Send upon us Your mercy, and show us the solution to our problem in the right way.

    Sincerity of intention and resolve in purpose are always extremely difficult to maintain because of the trappings of the ego. 

  • Muslims, Christians, and Atheists. Spot the difference…

    I find it strange, if not unfortunate, that people that choose atheism, a great many of which despise religion, do so on the basis of acquiring (sometimes) in-depth knowledge of Christianity mainly, finding the flaws in their logic, tenets and scriptures, and then proclaiming that as the illogical base that substantiates their views on religion in totality.

    Muslims, unfortunately in their present form, do very little to dissuade such an approach because we’re just so ritualistic and often illogical in our application of the beauty of Islam based on how our forefathers did it, rather than a conscious effort through understanding the principles of what Islam offers, with the only saving grace being that we have a more logically sound base off which to work.

    But when we contaminate Islam with cultural rubbish and use that as a yardstick to measure the worth of other Muslims, boldly proclaiming who is kaafir and who is not, we erode that very same pristine base and expose ourselves to the same debasement and ridicule that the majority of Christians have so rightly earned, thereby playing into the hands of the atheists that can rightfully find so much in our actions to ridicule any true belief in the Oneness of Allah. 

    We imitate them (Christians) more than we realise. Look at our clerical hierarchies that we’ve created? Our symbolism that we attach to our places of worship? Our rhetoric from the pulpits launching our lectures on the basis of us all being sinners? The list goes on. We quote dogmatically from the books of scholars because we’ve been led to believe that we’re too simple-minded to apply the source in our own lives because the true teachings of Islam contained in the Qur’an and Hadeeth have been reduced to a science to be studied before it can be applied. We define the scholars as superior to the masses and openly refer to the masses as the ‘Awwaam’, which despite the best intentions of the one using that term, is a condescending term steeped in pride and arrogance. 

    I am not of the scholars, nor am I of the Awwaam. I am a Mu’min before I am a Muslim. This, to me, is the meaning of taqwa (piety/god-consciousness); realising who I am, and what I believe in before I contemplate how I wish to present my beliefs to the world in my appearance or rituals that are to be observed by others, hopefully in conformance with their expectations so that I may be accepted in those circles. Purity of intention is lost when we try to conform to a broader societal expectation. We’re breeding well-intentioned hypocrites by insisting that our children are schooled in the rituals of Islam without ensuring that they understand the principles and substance of the beauty that Islam offers. 

  • In the absence of affirmation or constructive criticism, it’s extremely difficult to maintain my bearings on whether I’m heading in the right direction or not. I’m inclined to believe that despite my best efforts, I simply do not fit in with the Muslim community. This despite the fact that I am a regular musallee and those salaah that I miss in congregation I perform in the privacy of my home. I pay my zakaah, but in private of course. I fast during Ramadaan and occasionally on days recommended by the Sunnah throughout the year, but I don’t advertise it to others when I do. I have tried to obtain my visa for Hajj twice now, but both attempts being unsuccessful because of quota restrictions from the Saudi government. And most importantly, I have no doubt that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammed (SAW) is the last and final prophet and messenger of Allah.

    Yet none of this is sufficient to provide me with any level of peace or fulfillment in my engagements with the broader Muslim community. The lack of conviction to principles, the kowtowing to elitist social circles, the embellishment of kufr to make it acceptable, the condescension and rhetoric from the pulpits, the detachment of the scholars from the communities, the excess in lifestyles, not just materialistically, but also ritualistically, the condoning of suicide bombings and attacks on unarmed women and children, and so much more that just doesn’t seem to fit in with the value system that I see Islam teaching us. 

    We’re living the signs of the hour, yet we’re still looking outwardly to judge others for their contribution to these signs? I need to find the middle path in all this…Ya Allah, please guide me to the path of moderation and sincerity in all this. Please save me from myself, and save me from the allures of social acceptance when that acceptance demands insincerity and hypocrisy. 

  • I need to engage with more Muslims that are similarly passionate about resisting the ritualistic observance of Islam, but instead are hungry to understand the purpose and beauty of it. Not just the beauty that we’re told it is by the ‘respected elders’ but the realisation of its beauty that we feel individually. 

    I’m starting to despise the rhetoric, the condescension and the air of superiority from those that think that the madhabs and the Indo-Pak interpretation of Islam is the purist form of its application. I lose respect for those that do without understanding, or at least make no effort to even try to understand. 

    I despise the blind faith that so many place in their leaders, or sheikhs, imams, maulanas, and others. We’ve done this to such an extent that we’ve inadvertently created a hierarchy not dissimilar to the Christian church! We’re imitating in ways we don’t realise, and I need desperately to find and engage with others that are equally appalled by this, so that InshaAllah we can collectively contribute to the reawakening of the Ummah. 

    We keep talking about how Islam was hijacked by Al-Qaeda, Wahhabism, the West, etc. but we fail to see how we’ve surrendered Islam to the social elite! 

  • What would it be like if our real life was a reflection of our Tumblr personalities? I often used to wonder about it the other way around, as in what would we be like on Tumblr if our blogs reflected who we are in real life. I suspect that there are some that may have this commonality between the two realms, but most probably don’t. To a large extent including me. 

    If I can get 50 or 100 or perhaps even 1000’s of followers on Tumblr without revealing my whole self, what does this suggest about me? Or is it really a suggestion about everyone else? I mean, does it suggest that I am actually capable of being more popular in real life than I am at present, or ever have been…or does it mean that people will potentially like me less if I introduced all the social stigmas into my online profile so that they would then follow me based not just on what I think or post or like, but on what I look like, where I live, what race group I’m from or what religion I follow?

  • 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.