Monday 30 May 2022

Sisters allegedly murdered by husbands in Pakistan ‘honour’ killing

 


Two sisters with dual Pakistani and Spanish citizenship were allegedly killed by their husbands, uncle and brother in a so-called “honour” killing a day after they were tricked into travelling to Pakistan.

Aneesa Abbas, 24, and Arooj Abbas, 21, were strangled and shot dead on Friday after arriving in the eastern city of Gujrat with their mother, Azra Bibi.

It is understood that, on arrival in Pakistan, the sisters were pressured to help their husbands, who they were forced to marry last year, apply for spouse visas so they could travel to Europe.

It is alleged Aneesa and Arooj were killed when they refused to help. Both women wanted to divorce their husbands, who were also their cousins, so that they could remarry in Spain.

“The investigations have confirmed that both the sisters were killed in the name of ‘honour’,” said investigating police officer Muhammad Akhtar.

Police said the women’s husbands, Hassan Aurengzeb and Atiq Hanif, their uncle, Hanif Goga, and their brother, Shehryar Abbas, have been arrested and confessed to the killing. Two other men have been arrested in connection with the attack.

Hundreds of women are murdered by family members in Pakistan each year in so-called “honour” killings for violating conservative norms governing women’s relationships, despite 2016 legislation ending the loopholes in the law that allowed culprits to walk free in the country’s deeply patriarchal society.

Earlier that year, the murder of Qandeel Baloch, known as “Pakistan’s Kim Kardashian”, by her brother Waseem Azeem sparked national outrage and demands for changes to the law. Azeem was sentenced to life imprisonment but was acquitted in February this year after his parents pardoned him.

Samar Minallah, a human rights activist, said: “This is yet another brutal murder of innocent girls raised in another culture valuing basic human rights, yet treated like inanimate objects by their own families.”

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent rights group, more than 470 cases of “honour” killings were reported in the country last year.

It is not uncommon for parents with dual citizenship to force their daughters to marry cousins in Pakistan to secure European visas. A report on forced marriage, published by the UK government in 2020, found almost 40% of cases involved British citizens being taken to Pakistan to marry against their wishes.

In 2016, Samia Shahid, a British Pakistani beautician from Bradford in the north of England, was raped and killed when she returned to Jhelum district after marrying a man from outside the family. She had previously left her first husband, a first cousin from their village in Pakistan. Her ex-husband and father were arrested for her murder. Six years later, the case is ongoing.

Source

Wednesday 25 May 2022

Tuesday 24 May 2022

Unsung guardians of the 'true' tradition

 


Back in 1995, when The Times asserted Islam was to blame for the poor levels of education among women in the Muslim world, Mohammad Akram Nadwi began scouring ancient Arabic manuscripts for women's names. Looking specifically for female scholars, his hope was to find maybe 20 or 30 women. What he found was astounding. By Julia Ley

In 1995 Mohammad Akram Nadwi was conducting research at the Centre for Islamic Studies in Oxford. Annoyed by a blanket assertion made by The Times newspaper that the reason Muslim women were so poorly educated was down to Islam, he was moved to take action. He began scouring ancient Arabic manuscripts for women's names, looking specifically for female scholars.

Initially, he hoped to find maybe 20 or 30 women, he says, but: "I soon realised that a huge number of women had been active in the search for knowledge. Sometimes a single scholar would write, 'I studied with 70 women'. Another would pass on a hadith that had been transmitted by a total of 400 women."

Recording the life of the Prophet
After the Koran, the hadiths are the second most important source for very many Muslims. They are written records about the life of the Prophet Muhammad – things he is said to have said, or done. They are vitally important to Muslims because they translate the abstract message of the Koran into everyday specifics. During the early years of Islam, Muslim scholars concerned with establishing hadith authenticity handled their source material critically.

Nadwi began his research by scouring well-known and lesser-known hadith collections for women's names. He also delved into biographies and reports that scholars wrote about their teachers – male and female. What he found exceeded all his expectations.

sits in conversation at a table with various writings and books (photo: Al-Salam Institute)
Twenty years of dedication: Nadwi has gone to great lengths to rescue these female scholars from historical obscurity. Yet, he is not necessarily what you would call a liberal Muslim. Nor does he call himself a feminist. "But feminism and I do agree on one thing," Akram Nadwi concedes. "I do believe women have been oppressed and that we should work hard to defend their rights and give them the honour they deserve"
The article he set out to write turned into a book, the book into an encyclopaedia. In mid-January 2021, after more than 20 years, he finally completed his work. The biographies of more than 10,000 women are now contained in 43 volumes. The final tally even surprised even Islamic theologian Dina El Omari, who conducts research at the University of Munster in Germany. "I was aware that there were many, but that it turned out to be so many in the end was astonishing – indeed, it is what makes the whole project so exciting."

Nadwi also has a few exciting stories to tell. Take Umm al-Darda, for example, a prominent legal scholar in 7th century Damascus. As a young woman, she not only studied together with the men, but she also prayed with them in the men's area of the mosque – something that would be unthinkable in the vast majority of mosques today. Or Karima al-Marwaziyya, who lived in Mecca in the 11th century. Her copy of the most important hadith collection, the al-Buhari collection, is still considered definitive to this day.

Altogether, Nadwi estimates, about a quarter of all hadiths were handed down by women. What's more, they were apparently not only diligent, but also thorough. "When it comes to the Prophet's traditions, very, very many men have been accused of making up hadiths. Yet all the hadith scholars confirm that lying about one of the Prophet's hadiths is not something a woman has ever been accused of, which is amazing."

A foretaste of the final work: this book provides an English-language preface Nadwi's 40-volume biographical dictionary (in Arabic) of women scholars of the Prophet's hadiths. During the formative years of Islam learned women enjoyed high public standing and authority. For centuries, women travelled intensively for religious knowledge and routinely attended the most prestigious mosques and madrassas across the Islamic world. An overview chapter, with accompanying maps, traces the spread of centres of hadith learning for women, and their eventual decline
But if there were so many learned Muslim women and they were so conscientious – how come so few of them are remembered today? Akram Nadwi explains with an example:

"One of Islam's great scholars, Ibn al-Sam'ani, who lived in the 13th or 14th century, records that he wanted to study with a woman called Karima: 'I asked her brother many times to allow me to study with her. But her brother always found excuses.' You can see the problem here: if people had a son or a brother, they wanted them to be famous. If they had a sister, they wanted to keep her hidden."

Nadwi has gone to great lengths to rescue these female scholars from historical obscurity. Yet, he is not necessarily what you would call a liberal Muslim. Nadwi has worked with the European Fatwarat, which is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Nor does he call himself a feminist.

"But feminism and I do agree on one thing," Akram Nadwi concedes. "I do believe that women have been oppressed and that we should work hard to defend their rights and give them the honour they deserve. What I don't like is that feminism aims to make men and women equal."

Nevertheless, his work remains important for Muslim women, since it provides them with convincing arguments when fighting for more say. After all, says Gonul Yerli, even today, some Muslim men still invoke "tradition" in an attempt to keep women out of positions of power.

As deputy director of the mosque in Penzberg, Yerli is one of the very few women at the head of an Islamic community in Germany. Some members of the Bavarian congregation initially had a problem accepting her position. "One of them said: 'You know, there is a hadith: when a woman heads an Islamic community, then the community is cursed, and she will never reach her peaceful goal'," Yerli recalls.

Dina El Omari is also acquainted with instances where men use religious arguments to manipulate women. "We have a tradition that is supposed to have been spoken by the Prophet: that is, if a man invites a woman into his bed and she refuses, then the angels will curse her all night. Of course, that's a very extreme example. But it does show how women are pressured – using religious arguments – to do things they don't actually want to do."

According to Gonul Yerli, there is another, very practical reason why such sayings are so widespread: they are much easier to understand than the Koran. "The language of the Koran is complex, and it doesn't offer an answer to every question. In fact, to be honest, it rarely does."

Questioning misogynistic traditions
Both Gonul Yerli and Dina El Omari try to counter the misogynistic hadiths in their work, their teaching and in pastoral care. El Omari explains, for example, that it is very uncertain whether Mohammed was in fact the originator of these sentiments. After all, none of them turn up in the oldest extant collections. "Which is quite striking. It really does make you pause for thought: these misogynistic traditions are in such stark contrast to the Prophet's biography that they simply don't fit in."

As long as women had a say, El Omari says, the misogynistic traditions were corrected. Aisha, for example, one of the Prophet's favourite wives, often argued with Abu Huraira, one of the Prophet's companions, after her husband's death.

Pioneering position: as deputy director of the mosque in Penzberg, Gonul Yerli is one of the very few women at the head of an Islamic community in Germany. Some members of the Bavarian congregation initially had a problem accepting her. "One of them said: 'You know, there is a hadith: when a woman heads an Islamic community, then the community is cursed," she recalls. Yet, according to Yerli, there is another, very practical reason why such sayings are so widespread: they are much easier to understand than the Koran. "The language of the Koran is complex, and it doesn't offer an answer to every question. In fact, to be honest, it rarely does"
Abu Hureira asserted, for example, that a man's ritual prayer would be invalidated if a woman walked past in his direction of prayer. "And that's when Aisha just put in her vote and said very clearly that the Prophet would never have said something like that," says Omari.

Aisha herself reports in various hadiths that the Prophet prayed in his room, even when she was lying in bed in front of him. It is examples like this that reveal how important it is that these ancient female scholars are finally noticed and recognised again.

Mohammad Akram Nadwi agrees. "If women are not represented, then no-one will represent them. Then false ideas about women will prevail and no-one will be able to defend them."

Thursday 19 May 2022

A tale of divorce

 


I found this quite an eye opener:

How did we get here? I genuinely don't know whether or not to laugh or cry or fume with anger. This is another divorce case I am helping with right now. The wife came from abroad, lives in a tiny London flat, has no family here, struggles to speak English, completely financially dependent for the past 20 years and looks after their disabled (adult) child.


Man: We will divorce according to Islam. I will maintain her for the waiting period. That is all.
Sheikh: Where did you read this?
Man: There is a fatwa website online. Proper scholars. I only share the truth. This is the Shariah.
Sheikh: And what should she do after the three months?
Man: I don't know. Get benefits.
Sheikh: And your son? The extra care, hospital visits, appointments, you will not even leave her a car? London is an expensive city.
Man: I will pay for the boy. He gets benefits. I don't pay for her. This is the Shariah. I work hard.
Sheikh: And she doesn't work hard? You think, this is what Allah wants?
Man: I don't make the rules. Allah says:
وَعَسَىٰٓ أَن تَكْرَهُوا۟ شَيْـًۭٔا وَهُوَ خَيْرٌۭ لَّكُمْ ۖ وَعَسَىٰٓ أَن تُحِبُّوا۟ شَيْـًۭٔا وَهُوَ شَرٌّۭ لَّكُمْ
 "Maybe you hate a thing, but it is good for you and maybe you love a thing, but it is bad for you" (Qur'an 2:216)
Sheikh: This verse is about people who do not like to fight, when they must.
Man: Yes, marriage is jihad.
(It is explained to him that the majority of the "classical" rules of divorce and settlement were written in the context of Muslim majority communities, where women had support structures and family that could take care of them and furthermore, there would be Zakat readily available to support someone who could not earn. In the absence of these, he must continue to support her and/or give her a financial settlement. Cherry picking fatwa online is not Islam. He refuses. Sheikh now getting ruffled.)
Man: If she goes to the courts, it is haram. She is stealing from me. Anyways, I will fight her and it will cost so much, she will be left with very little. I don't believe in this modern Islam. The deen is the deen. This is the Shariah.


Sheikh: Okay. You want to follow only classical Islam? Khalas. Show me this website, let me see which Mufti.
*Man pulls out website, a very popular Q&A website, with British 'scholars' giving many of the answers, including this one.*
Sheikh: Okay, great. Let me search something - *Sheikh looks through the website* Okay, perfect. Here. What about this?
Man: *He reads* Ermm.. Errrr.
Sheikh: Just to confirm, you did admit to having multiple affairs during the marriage after your wife caught you?
Man: I repented from this.
Sheikh: Okay, but we are we only want to follow classical Islam, right? Right. So what is the "classical Islamic" way to deal with your infidelity according to these same scholars and the same website you showed me?
Man: You know this. It is not possible to do here.
Sheikh: Okay, but maybe you can go to another country and they can fulfil the Shariah? You are a man of truth, right? Tell me, how much of your wealth with your wife get in this case?
Man: I don't understand.
Sheikh: If we follow the Shariah, according to this website, your punishment for your actions is to be killed. So when you die, your wealth will be split between your wife and your children, right?
Man: Yes, but...
Sheikh: You don't have any parents alive or other wives or children?
Man: No, but...
Sheikh: This is the Shariah, right?
Man: We don't live in Darul Islam.
Sheikh: You are correct, we live in Darul England. So, please make your mind up on which system you want to follow.
*sigh*
I find it fascinating that the website in question, for the adultery question now has this big disclaimer at the top:
"An Important Clarification - In light of recent attempts by some to sensationalise my views by taking them out of their intended context, I would like to categorically express that the answer below does not, in any way, call for stoning or capital punishment in non-Islamic states... the implementation of the law on adultery and fornication is only applicable under an Islamic State, and as such, this is merely an academic and theoretical discussion, since Britain is not an Islamic state... I do not of course endorse the implementation of this law in places where people choose not to have it."
Very funny that this disclaimer is not found on the divorce questions. Why aren't they "academic and theoretical discussions" when they are literally citing fiqh rulings from about 800 years ago that are being used to literally make Muslim women homeless today.
Marriage is hard. Divorce is messy. Using or rather, "abusing" Islam to line your pocket while leaving a woman vulnerable, not least the mother of your disabled child, is one of the most despicable things you can do.


Alhumdolillah, over the past year, we've been able to help a number of women in this exact or similar situation with cash/Zakat. If you can help, little or large, please reach out. At the very least, please like, comment and share to raise awareness on this oppression in our midst.

Wednesday 18 May 2022

How to be a good parent to Muslim children growing up in twenty-first century Britain?

 


From Yahya Birt's Fb page, I found it very beneficial alhamdulilah.

An old friend whose children are much younger than mine asked me how to be a good parent to Muslim children growing up in twenty-first century Britain. I was a bit flummoxed by the question as I’ve never considered myself to be any sort of parenting model. As a father, I am decidedly a work in progress: I still make parenting mistakes even into my third decade as a father. However, after mulling over it for a couple of months, these are some of the rules of thumb that have worked for me. Maybe they will work for you.


1. Don’t squash your child into a preconceived mould of what a good Muslim should be, but facilitate their own journey of discovery. Good parents nurture: they are not dictators.
2. Prepare your children for the world as it is not how you would like it to be. You have to prepare them to be resourceful and resilient.
3. Focus on the fundamentals of faith: on God, the Prophet, and the Hereafter in their youth. Build that bond and connection with the faith, with the mosque, and with pious and holy people, with the gatherings of remembrance and learning.


4. Establish your own prayer and worship if you wish to establish it in your children. Let them see that dua is the first resort of a believer who puts their trust in God.
5. Make the child used to seeing giving in action, helping others; give them money to give to others from a young age. Make them see generosity, hospitality, service and compassion as the Muslim's bread and butter, and their salt and pepper.
6. Try to establish love and attachment to the Quran from a young age. Listening to Quran recitation is an important part of this.
7. If you break your child’s spirit in pursuit of inculcating self-control you will break their confidence. Don’t be your child’s eternal life raft and never be their jailor: focus on teaching them how to swim.
8. Always remind your child their faith must come to centre on their own relationship with God, not on parental approval or disapproval. The latter are props to be kicked away as their faith matures and their understanding grows.


9. Under-confidence is a bigger issue among young Muslims, boys especially, than is egotism. Let us recognise bravado as a sign of lack of confidence rather than of arrogance.
10. Our established systems of moral education (tarbiyah) were not built for Muslim minority status or the structural Islamophobia of the postcolonial period. They need to be rebuilt from scratch with wisdom and love to become fit for purpose.
11. No educational institution, religious or secular, will give everything your child as an individual needs to grow. Be prepared to change things around in the best interests of your child. Be ready to work in active partnership with your child's educators and to challenge them constructively if they are not doing right by your child. You can't leave them at the school and madrasa gates, do nothing else and just hope for the best. That is a failure of parenting.
12. If you find a teacher who inspires your child hang on to them. They are a priceless commodity. Even in adulthood, many of us struggle to distinguish between our interest in a subject and poor teaching -- this is doubly true for children. Teachers have the power to switch us on or off many subjects, either secular or religious, until we solidify our own motives for learning various subjects.
13. Consider holiday time an opportunity to explore the history and culture of Muslims; such educational opportunities are there even in our home countries in the West if travelling abroad is beyond your means.
14. Stay close to your extended family if you are blessed to have one. A child brought up in an extended family is more rounded and confident. The nuclear family structure combined with the current economic requirement for dual income households doesn’t add up to attentive parenting.
15. Keep your kids off smart phones for as long as possible -- at least until they gain a love of reading books. Make book reading with your children a daily practice. Focus on making it enjoyable for them not onerous. If they master the art of long-form concentration and capacity for subtle and extended argument or great prose and sophisticated character studies in terms of nonfiction and fiction book reading they will retain an advantage few others will possess in the digital age.
16. Don’t try as parents to present a united parental front to the children, but demonstrate to them the art of disagreeing and then compromising within a family setting. Teach them to use words and reason to convey what is on their minds.
17. A home without any arguments is one where someone is usually keeping quiet and making all the compromises.
18. Don’t go to bed without making up with your children after an argument. Don’t let things fester.
19. Always strive for open communication with your children above all. Never penalise honesty, especially when they confess to wrongdoing or to having doubts. That way your child will feel safe to tell you what’s really on their minds. This openness is a blessing not a test.
20. Tell your children that doubt is part of faith, and that you will always be there to help answer any question they have, no matter how tough or awkward it might be. If you don’t know the answer yourself, tell them you don’t know, but that you are willing to go away and find out more. Or direct them to someone who does know.
21. Try to teach your children as many practical life skills as possible. Schools do not cover this adequately in my experience.
22. Encourage your children to eat the same food that you eat from a young age. In other words, eat together, not separately. Resist the temptation to give them children’s meals. This is just marketing and the food is normally bad for them.
23. Try to offer them a balanced plate of food. Reduce carbs and sugar, and get them used to vegetables and fruit. Don’t become a household that is reliant on fried foods or a heavy meat diet. Try to source meat and poultry that is organic, halal and cruelty-free (this is particularly important in the case of chickens who are mostly kept in cruel conditions).
24. Encourage them to love the outdoors and sports. Let them muck around in puddles and get muddy when young. Don’t keep them cooped up. Barring a heavy storm with heavy wind and rain, there’s no such thing as truly bad weather but only a wardrobe unable to adapt to Britain’s temperamental weather.
25. Encourage your children to love plants, animals, and nature. Have plants in your home, and even if you have a small yard put some pots in it. Grow some tomatoes or strawberries so that they can see where food comes from. Cats make ideal pets. They are affectionate but also independent and clean. They retain a sense of their wildness and this is important for children to experience.
26. If a parent has to assert their authority by saying that Islam teaches children to respect their parents then usually something has gone wrong. The same goes for shouting.
27. Model good manners to your children. Good manners are gold, but only with the right motives. They are a means to an end, not an end in themselves.
28. If you model good listening to your children, they will become good listeners too, insha’Allah.
29. Help your children to learn to navigate friendships. This is particularly important for girls, who seek out deeper friendships than boys do at a younger age. The most important lessons they have to learn are that friendships come in different shapes and sizes, that they are based on reciprocity and can’t be one-sided, that friends should respect your boundaries, and not to blame yourself for dynamics in friendships that are beyond your control.
30. You never stop being a parent. However your children do become adults, and so the relationship does become more equal and this is natural and to be expected.

Tuesday 17 May 2022

Mesut Özil: The Muhammad Ali of Our Time

 

I completely agree with CJ Werle here: International football superstar Mesut Özil is the Muhammad Ali of our time, risking reputation and livelihood to speak out forcibly against the world’s worst human rights abuses.

Whereas millions of ethnic Uyghurs have been forcibly disappeared in a network of Chinese-government-run concentration camps, torture dungeons, and possibly mass graves, international football superstar Mesut Özil, a German-born Muslim, has been forcibly erased from the world’s premier football league and international attention for daring to speak out against Beijing.

It all started with a tweet posted on December 13, 2019, when he condemned China for its persecution of Uyghur Muslims, and the governments of Muslim majority countries for their complicit silence.

“Qur’ans are burned, mosques are closed, madrassas are banned, religious scholars are killed one by one. The brothers are forced into the camps. Chinese men are settled in their families instead of them. The sisters are forced to marry Chinese men,” reads an excerpt from Özil’s tweet. “Despite all this, the Ummah of Prophet Muhammad is silent. Doesn’t object/say anything.”

Friends and advisers had warned Özil that there would be consequences for speaking out.

According to the New York Times, friends and advisers had warned Özil –– who was then under contract with the English Premier League (EPL) team Arsenal –– that there would be consequences, but Özil felt compelled by his religious faith to act. He ignored their warnings. The consequences came swift.

Not only did Arsenal distance itself from their star player, saying, “The content published is Özil’s opinion,” and that as a football club, it adhered to the “principle of not involving itself in politics” –– which is nonsense, given Arsenal has publicly expressed support for an array of political causes, including Black Lives Matter. In response to Özil’s activism, China disappeared Özil’s name from video games, social media, and Internet search engines, while threatening to ban telecasts of Arsenal’s future fixtures.

Ten months later, Özil’s name also disappeared from Arsenal’s rostered list of players, ending his time in the world’s top football competition with a £13,975,000 annual salary. Arsenal traded him to Turkish club Fenerbahce in the 13th ranked league in Europe.

His fall couldn’t have been greater. In 2018, he became the world’s highest paid player in history, earning £350,000 per week in the top-flight EPL, but today he pulls in only a fraction of that, roughly £60,000 per week, playing in the second-rate Süper Lig. Barely six months after he condemned China for its persecution of Uyghur Muslims, Adidas ended its seven-year, £22 million sponsorship deal with Özil.

Notably, Adidas has been accused of profiting from the mass detainment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, where detainees have been forced into picking cotton.

Speaking out against what the United States government has now identified as “genocide” has exacted a massive financial and emotional cost on Özil. Yet he remains undeterred, using his massive social media following to raise awareness about the brutalities endured by Palestinians under Israeli occupation, Syrians under Russian bombardment, and Yemenis caught in the middle of a proxy war.

Özil prayed for the “safety and well-being of our Muslim brothers and sisters in India.”

To celebrate the Islamic holy night of Lailat al-Qadr on April 27, Özil prayed for the “safety and well-being of our Muslim brothers and sisters in India,” calling the Indian government’s crackdown on the religious minority “shameful” before asking, “What is happening to human rights in the so-called largest democracy in the world?”

Clearly, Özil is undeterred and unintimidated by India’s growing economic clout. He fears no man and no government. He answers only to God and his own moral compass.

While far from a perfect analogy, Özil is the Muhammad Ali of our era, and like “the Greatest” heavyweight boxing champion of all time, he has risked reputation and livelihood in speaking out forcibly against the world’s worst human rights abuses.

Ali told reporters back in 1966, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong,” which was followed with, “No Vietcong ever called me [N-word],” a line that perfectly couched his ethical opposition to an unjust foreign war in support for civil rights at home. Sixteen months later on June 20, 1967, Ali was sentenced to 5 years in prison for refusing to be inducted into the US armed forces.

Although he managed to stay out of prison while appealing his case to the US Supreme Court on religious grounds, he was stripped of his boxing titles and denied the right to fight professionally for nearly four years. But the Supreme Court overturned his conviction and his actions as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War made him an icon of the American civil rights movement.

It’s impossible to imagine the late Muhammad Ali isn’t an inspiration to Özil in an era of hyper-commercialism.

It’s impossible to imagine the late Muhammad Ali isn’t an inspiration to Özil in an era of hyper-commercialism, where very few athletes are willing to put principles before profit.

Most live by the mantra quipped by NBA hall of famer Michael Jordan, who explained away his refusal to endorse Democrat Harvey Gantt, an African American, in a 1990 US Senate race against Republican Jesse Helms, a notorious and vicious racist, by saying, “Republicans buy sneakers, too.”

Well, China buys football merchandise and EPL products, too –– but Özil dared to use his global following to stand up against the abuse committed by Beijing against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. He knew that he would have to write off the world’s largest economy as a market, including his six million followers on the Chinese social media network Wiebo and his fan club there, which boasted more than 50,000 signed-up members.

He knew that “he might become too toxic even for any club with Chinese owners, or sponsors eager to do business there,” reported the New York Times.

With the world bedeviled and besieged by intractable conflicts, fledgling and ongoing genocides, and the hate that flows from rising ultranationalist impulses, we need the likes of Mesut Özil and Muhammad Ali more than ever.

Link

Thursday 12 May 2022

Australian Academic Accepts Islam After Surviving 1200 days as a Hostage

Very shocking but moving story of conversion. May Allah strenghthen this brother's faith and reward him for his patience.

Tuesday 10 May 2022

Be kind.....

 

 


“Kindess is a mark of faith and whoever is not kind has no faith.” Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) (Muslim)

Abu Ad-Darda رضي الله عنه reported: The Prophet ﷺ  said:
Whoever is given his portion of kindness has been given his portion of goodness, and whoever is deprived of his portion of kindness has been deprived of his portion of goodness.
Source: Sunan At-Tirmidhi 2013,

Ibn Mas’ud reported رضي الله عن : The Messenger of Allah ﷺ
Shall I not tell you for whom the Hellfire is forbidden? It is every person accessible, polite, and mild.
Source: Sunan At-Tirmidhi 2488

 

 

Monday 9 May 2022

Famous Jewish Skater SHOCKED Sheikh Uthman

 

A very emotional convert story. Share your faith by being he kindest Muslim you can be.