MENGO HAS TO QUICKLY DIALOGUE WITH SHEIK MUZAATA AND MUSLIMS!

By: Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba

Many have been angered and outraged by what Sheikh Nuhu Muzaata said but I think Mengo has to quickly dialogue with Brother Muzaata and Muslims, instead of encouraging people to attack him. The issues he raised are representing the views of certain people(both Muslims and Non-Muslims) and they shouldn’t just be ignored.I suppose in my own stumbling way, I am trying to speak for some Muslims who feel aggrieved with some stuff going on in Mengo. We should have a national dialogue on religion,culture and trust, and focus on how we can support each other.

Interestingly, Sheikh Muzaata sounds so calm and composed while on the phone. I spoke to him once when he visited London a couple of years ago. May be, he uses that kind of language with the intention of driving his point home……just think about it: why are we all of a sudden having an intense debate about Etofari yet such sentiments have been around for a while? Muzaata’s language is obviously below the belt but he is very good at using mind control techniques to force a debate on an issue. I just hope that we concentrate more on the issues he raised rather than the way he presented them.

This topic is being shared with all not to insult but to advice.

Byebyo ebyange!

A non-Muslim View on the ‘Muzaata- Etofari’ comments!

” Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba, my understanding of etoofali is that it has origin in several overt and covert acts of the Central government towards Men go including (a) the nearly 2 year closure of CBS and subsequent censureship of the broadcast content (b) the deliberate refusal to effectively honour the ebyaffe (c) the burning down of the amasilo and it’s aftermath and (d) the targeted dismemberment of Buganda by encouraging/ building / formenting cessation in Buruli, Kayunga and Kooki. This had the effect of crippling the Kingdom economically.

The etofaali was one way of demonstrating that Buganda can unite and restore her glory in the eye of a storm.I have said elsewhere that I have nothing against Sheikh Muzata. I take his words as he says them. He acknowledges the success of etoofali. He hates it that Moslems have contributed to this project so much but not to the building of mosques in Butambala which are of such a standard that he cannot enter with his white tunic! I will not repeat what he says about Churches in the area, He hates it that the money has been given and used for the different projects of Buganda like amasilo and not health centres. He wonders where the Moslems will gain in these projects.

I am not aware of any grand fundraising launched by Sheikh Muzata for building mosques in Butambala or health facilities that Baganda and others have refused to contribute towards. But I may be mistaken.If Muzata was not a Sheikh I would have said he has enugu(malice) against the Katikiro and the establishment that commissioned the etofaali. But then being a Sheikh I expect he is above such pettism.

Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba that is why I pray you put up the clip of Sheikh Muzata’s address so that we all draw conclusions based on facts rather than sentiments.I hope we all learn lessons. The enemies of Buganda may not be far from abaana enzaarwa. But also may be it’s time we extended etofaali to improving health and education in Buganda and Uganda”

–—JOSEPH TUMUSHABE VIA THE UAH-FACEBOOK PLATFORM

This a must read if u know how to read luganda. I love it,and please share with others.

Omwana bwaweza emyezi omusanvu nga tanayavula bazadde be beralikirira nebamutwala ewomusawo okumwekebejja. Kino kitegeeza waliwo emyaka egisubirwa omuntu okubaako kyatuuseeko mu bulamu bwe,Bwoweza emyaka 30 bazadde bo baba bakusubira okuba nga wawasa/wafumbirwa dda era olina abaana,ate bwoweza emyaka 40 nga tonazimba oba oberalikiriza lwakuba tebakugamba.

Ate bwoba muwala n’oweza emyaka 18 nga tolina mulenzi yenna gwe wesesezaako, Bazadde bo, batandika okweralikirira nga balowooza nti endiga ya kutomera.

Naye era bwoweza emyaka 30 naye nosigala nga okozesa olulimi olwesitaza ku social networks nga facebook abasinga oba otwelalikiriza!

Okuwasa kwekusooka nemuzimba mwembi amaka,amaka ye Mukyala,abaana,enju nebyenfuna ebirala. Emitwe ebiri jisinga ogumu.Lwakuba mwe abenaku zino okuwasa mukuwanvuya olwokuba mwagala okukola embaga ezisuula emiti naye wano okuwasa kwenjogerako si kwekukola embaga wabula kwekufuna munno gwemukkanya naye.

Okufuna omukazi tekikwetagisa ssente wabula kikwetagisa kusalawo nti kati nkuze,obusente nebwebuba butono butya bwoba walonda burungi omukazi asigala wo nga afumba paka lwemufuna. naye nebwoba mwavu atleast bakusubira at 40 okuba nga oguzeeyo ka plot,Bwoba tokikoze,oba oyiyeyo bazaddebo.

Abakazi abakuze nga batuuse okufumburwa bangi,Ekibi kyamwe gwe bwokulirira notandika okufuna ekiroowozo kyokuwasa ate onoonya bawala bato abakatandika obutandisi okulya obulamu, Awo temujja kumalako.

Nubian Legacy explored in Sunday vision

Moustapha has kept a pictorial account of events and trips on the wall of his study

THERE is no doubt that many civilisations in Africa owe a lot to Nubians, Joseph Batte explores how they have influenced the Ugandan society, the wars they fought and traces their origin to the Sudan

FROM crude liquor, locally known as waragi or enguli to the sweet sometime hotpancake called kabalagala, Nubians had something to do with it. Originally enguli was called Nubian gin, which begs the question: �How did a people, who are renowned as devout Muslims end up brewing waragi?�

Moustapha Khamis Kenyi, 68, laughs at the question before explaining: �You see, when our grandmothers came from Sudan they were not very good Muslims like we are today. They carried with them the formula of making waragi all the way from Sudan.

Compared with today�s waragi, theirs was so potent that it attracted so many customers that Bombo became known as the �Centre of Waragi�.�

Nubians, who are known for their expertise in cookery, also introduced the art of making pancakes (Kabalagala), sumbusa and mandazi. Hairstyles like corn rows (Biswahili and bututtwa) were also introduced in Uganda by Nubians.

Today, kabalagala, the banana pancakes made from cassava flour and sweet banana�s are one of the many delicacies that Uganda copied from the Nubian cookbooks.

From Bombo, the art of making kabalagala was spread to other parts of the country by the Nubian communities living in urban centres.

Mzee �Macarena,� who has been selling pancakes from a white Suzuki on the streets of Kampala for over 40 years is one of the �students� who were taught how to make it by the Nubians.

�It�s true kabalagala is a Nubian delicacy. I also learnt the art of making it from them when I went to visit my uncle, who was living in Bombo,� he was quoted as saying in an earlier newspaper interview.

Mzee Macarena has since made a fortune out of selling kabalagala all his life. �I married a wife, bought land, constructed a house and educated my children up to university with the money I made from kabalagala,� he said. Such is the demand for his kabalagala that he get clients from abroad, especially Ugandans in the UK.

Kabalagala is a Luganda word that refers to that hot sensation one feels when one eats anything that had red pepper or chilli. Originally, kabalagala, was baked with red pepper, but due to complaints from customers the Nubians figured out how to make pepper-free pancakes.

In addition, the word Lufula, which means �abattoir� among most of the Bantu-speaking tribes in Uganda, was borrowed from the Nubian vocabulary. It is an Arabic word that means hole. When a cow was slaughtered, the blood was drained in a hole. Most of the abattoirs around Uganda have these holes.

For most Ugandans, Nubians are just a group of people, who came from Sudan and settled in Bombo town. Some people regard them as refugees, while others consider them to be mercenaries. The Nubians have also been associated with the brutal Idi Amin�s regime, for which they paid a heavy price.

In Bombo town, about 33km north of Kampala, I met Moustapha Khamis Kenyi, a respected Nubian elder. At over six feet tall, Moustapha is a giant. He has a strong voice like that of an army commander on the battlefront. Despite his advanced age, Moustapha is still as fit as a fiddle and walks with a spring in his step, which reveals a little about his past.

�I was a teacher but I also played football for the western region and Ankole in the 1960s. I�m also a qualified referee,� he boasts.

We are seated in the study of his house located opposite the army headquarters in Bombo. The walls of his study are covered with pictures, newspaper cuttings and books about the Nubian culture.

He says he is a devotee to Nubian history, culture and language. �My people call me �professor� because I am a walking embodiment of the Nubian people in Uganda.�

Acording to Moustapha, the Nubians of Uganda should not be confused with the Nubians of the Nubian Empire, who actually attacked, conquered and controlled all of Egypt for almost 100 years, from 760 to 664 BC.

In ancient times, much of what is now Sudan was known as Nubia or the Kingdom of Kush (also known as Cush). The Black Pharaohs, as they were known, ruled over a mighty empire, stretching along the Nile Valley 2,500 years ago. Moustapha has kept a pictorial account of events and trips on the wall of his study Moustapha�s father and his contemporaries in a picture taken in the 1950s

�The history of the Nubians in Uganda is actually different. We are the grandsons of the gallant soldiers that that were recruited in Sudan during the Turco-Egyptian regime and eventually brought down to present-day Uganda by Captain Frederick Lugard in the 1800s. My grandfather Kenyi was one of the soldiers that Lugard recruited.

Ancestral roots
�Our ancestors were recruited by Emin Pasha from about seven non-Arab Muslim tribes, which originated in an area between Aswan in southern Egypt and Dongola in northern Sudan. They included tribes like the Dinka and the Bari.�

Some were recruited as soldiers while others were taken as slaves. Those who were recruited as soldiers were taken through a series of military drills, which included how to fire big and small firearms.

Moustapha says the new recruits were not originally Muslim. �At the time, most of them had no proper religion. A few of them were Christians while others worshipped their traditional gods and each group had it own language.�

He says when they were recruited; the language the Arab commanders used was Arabic. �So, the new recruits were forced to learn Arabic, just like soldiers who join the army today find themselves speaking Swahili because it is the lingua franca in the army. In the colonial days it was English.

�Likewise, our ancestors were forced to drop their original ethnic languages in favour of Arabic. That�s how the creole Arabic or Kinubi, which is spoken by the Nubians in East Africa was born.
Eventually, they abandoned their diverse ethnic identities.

They were converted to Islam by their Arab masters, adopted the Islamic culture and finally came together to form a new tribe, which they named after the ancient Nubians, who once ruled Egypt. That�s how the Nubian tribe was born.

�To date, Nubian culture is based on Islamic tradition. In fact, to be a Nubian, you must be a Muslim first. When you introduce yourself to me as a Nubian, the first thing I will ask you is: Are you Muslim?�

�Even if you speak Kinubi, your parents are Nubi, but you are not a Muslim then you are not a Nubian,� says Mzee Moustapha.

Nubians arrive
While administering Uganda, Lugard went on a seven-month mapping tour of western Uganda, which saw him journey round Mt Rwenzori and the western arm of the Great Rift Valley to Lake Albert, Edward Nyanza, sometimes known as Lake Edward.

Lake Edward is the smallest of the African Great Lakes, which was named by the explorer Henry Morton Stanley in honour of the son of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Prince of Wales (November 9, 1841�May 6, 1910) who later became King Edward the VII.
While there, Captain Lugard met thousands of Nubians, who numbered 2,085 (and some 6,000) dependants led by their commander called Salim Bey at Kavallis on the western shores of Lake Edward.

These soldiers had been left there by Emin Pasha, a German doctor and naturalist, who had been appointed Governor of Equatoria and Henry Morton Stanley during the Emin Pasha relief expeditions of 1886 to 1889.

This expedition, which is regarded as one of the last major European expeditions into the interior of Africa in the 19th century, was organised by a Scottish businessman and philanthropist William Mackinon and James Frederick Hutton, to rescue Emin Pasha, Gen. Charles Gordon�s besieged governor of Equatorial, who was threatened by Mahdist forces.

With Nubians brought on board, Captain Lugard�s small IBEA force grew considerably. He then deployed the Nubian troops in a string of forts that he had built in western Uganda like Fort Gerry in Kabarole district which later became Fort Portal and Bombo in the north of Kampala, in Buganda.

However, before the Nubian soldiers and their families were deployed to Bombo, they were first taken to Port Bell Encampment, later named Port Bell and put in a garrison, which was later converted into the present day Murchison Bay Maximum Prison, Luzira.

Originally Port Bell Encampment was covered by a thick forest. Upon arriving, the Nubian troops remarked in Kinubi (Creole Arabic), Umon jibu ina fil Ghaba, which translates: �they have brought us into a bush (forest).� The name �bush� stuck.

To date the place is called Ggaba.
When the Nubian troops were eventually deployed to Bombo, they went on to form the core of the Uganda Rifles upon its establishment in 1895.

Later they were integrated into the East African army called King�s African Rifles in 1901 then finally Uganda Army and Uganda Police by the time Uganda attained independence on October 9, 1962.

Wars Nubians fought
The Nubians soldiers were renowned for their ferociousness. And, one of the first people to take notice (and later experience) the Nubian soldiers� ruthlessness was Omukama Kabalega of Bunyoro.

When Omukama Nyaika Kasunga of Toro, offended him by sending his men to Mwenge to capture Kabalega�s royal cows, an angry Kabalega sent his men to capture Nyaika Kasunga and bring him to his court in Bunyoro. The expedition sent to capture Nyaika included 40 ruthless Nubian mercenaries, who nevertheless were defeated.

After Toro seceded from Bunyoro Kitara Kingdom in 1830, Omukama Kabalega continued to harass the breakaway kingdom. Captain Lugard, with the help of Nubian troops, finally brought an end to Kabalega�s harassment, when they defeated him on August 14, 1891.

After defeating Kabalega, Captain Lugard handed back Toro kingdom to its rightful heir Omubiito (Prince) Kasagama, who had sought refuge in Buganda. Kasagama subsequently became Omukama Daudi Kyebambe Kasagama MBE., on August 16, 1891 and is regarded as Toro�s first modern-day Omukama.

Today, the descendants of the Nubian soldiers are found on the Kampala-Fort Portal road at a place called Kitumba. Some of the soldiers that fought like Mzee Moustapha�s father Kenyi were buried at Boma.

The British did not actually stop at restoring peace in western Uganda, but they set about conquering the rest of the country, with the help by Nubian soldiers.

Furthermore, the wars that British waged against Kabaka Mwanga and Omukama Kabalega, which led to their final capture was with the help of Nubian soldiers. They also fought in the first and second world wars. Nubian mutiny

Formally made a British Protectorate in 1894, the British still feared the encroachment of its colonial rivals France and Italy. In 1897 London sent an officer, Colonel J.R.L. Macdonald, with a force of Nubian troops to strengthen Britain�s hold on the region.

McDonald was not wholly successful as the Nubians mutinied, but after the suppression of the mutiny, Uganda�s place in the British Empire was firmly cemented by an alliance with the Baganda � the majority tribe.

Macdonald�s expedition is seen as one of the last incidents in the �Scramble for Africa� which brought almost the whole continent under European rule.
With Buganda secured by Lugard and the Germans no longer contending for control, the British began to enlarge their claim to the �headwaters of the Nile,� as they called the land north of Lake Victoria.

As a reward for this support, and in recognition of Buganda�s formidable military presence, the British negotiated a separate treaty with Buganda, granting it a large measure of autonomy and self-government within the larger protectorate under indirect rule.

One-half of Bunyoro�s conquered territory was awarded to Buganda as well, including the historic heartland of the kingdom containing several Bunyoro royal tombs. Buganda doubled in size from 10 to 20 counties (sazas), but the �lost counties� of Bunyoro remained a grievance that would return to haunt Buganda in the 1960s

Idi Amin connection
Nubians have always been erroneously associated with Idi Amin and his brutal regime. As a result they have suffered persecution and sega picture of staff members of Bombo Sudanese Primary School regation for the wrongs that were committed during Idi Amin�s regime from 1971 to 1979. How did this association come about?

�Let�s get this straight. Firstly, Amin was a Kakwa not a Nubian. His father Dada died here in Bombo barracks. Before he passed away, he requested his friend Yusuf Tambu, to take care of his son (Amin).

Amin was not originally a Muslim. So, Mzee Tambu�s first task was to convert him to Islam and teach him all about the religion. Since Amin was brought up by a Nubian at a place called Lomule, he learnt Kinubi and was assimilated into the Nubian culture.

�He was a very bright man. Besides Kinubi, he could also fluently speak other languages like Acholi, Lugbara and Kakwa, the language of his father, because all these languages were spoken in the barracks.

Generals Bazilio Olara Okello and Tito Okello, who were Amin�s comrades in the King�s African Rifles, could also speak fluent Kinubi.

The little English Amin spoke, he learnt it at the Army School in the barracks. The school was established by the British colonialists to teach illiterate recruits how to read and write.

�Because of that, people thought Amin was a Nubian. When he fell in 1979, Nubians became targets of popular hatred and have been forced to withdraw into their own shells. Many were forced to change their names while others had to flee into exile.

I went to exile in Sudan and lived there for eight years from 1979 to 1987 until President Yoweri Museveni took over power.

�In exile we were discriminated against because we were black and Muslim. The Arabs in the north, who are Muslims, segregated us because we are black. Our black brothers in southern Sudan, who were mainly Christians, segregated us because we were Muslim.

They said we were from Uganda and should go back home. So, when Museveni took over I convinced fellow Nubians in exile to return. We have not been mistreated since then.�

During the war against Amin, the liberators – Tanzanian army and Ugandan exiles – led by civilians came with lorries and looted every house. Doors and window panes were pulled down as the Tanzania forces watched.

When I returned I found fellow Nubians suffering. �It is true that some Nubians committed atrocities during the Idi Amin regime and those who did were punished. But it does not mean that all Nubians are bad.

We should not be persecuted or suffer discrimination for crimes we did not commit. For example, I have never touched a gun in my life. I was a teacher and later a miner in Mbarara. But to date when I tell people that I was not in the army, they can�t believe me because of my big size.

Prominent Nubians
Besides contributing to the security of the nation, the Nubian community in Uganda has always been a perfect breeding ground for sportsmen.

Abdul Majid Mohammed, now retired and living in Bombo, is among the many prominent Nubians who donned national colours. He played for the Cranes in the 1950s and 1960s after which he coached Mbale-based Gangama FC (Now Mbale Heroes) and steered them to the Uganda Cup victory in 1976.

He is credited for discovering Paul Hasule and Steven Higenyi. When he fled into exile, he watched various clubs and finally the Kenyan national team, the Harambee Stars.

Other Nubians who played for the Cranes are Aloo, Fauzu, Ahmed Doka, Ibrahim Dafala. Abbey Nassur and Rashid Mudin (late) were part of the Uganda Cranes squad list that went to Ghana for the Nations Cup in 1978 in Ghana.

Mohammed Rajab Kisekka, the retired referee/instructor and match commissioner who passed away in February was also Nubian. The list is long. Although Nubians held Ugandan passports, they were not recognised as a tribe until the promulgation of the 1995 Constitution.

�In the 1960s we were stopped from participating in elections on the pretext that we were not Ugandan citizens. When we tried to argue our case, we were asked to produce birth certificates. Are Nubians Ugandans?

Absolutely. I was born a Nubian. I will still be a Nubian, I will die a Nubian. But I�m a Ugandan my father was born here; my grandfather was buried in Uganda in Fort Portal.

Published on: Saturday, 2nd April, 2011

OPEN LETTER TO MUSLIMS

Islam is not some kind of club – it is a way of life. It therefore has to be learned and properly understood. There are no exceptions in Islam, except within the same Islamic guidelines: e.g. if you are on a journey, you can shorten your prayer (Qasr) – or you if are sick, you may not fast but provide Iftar to another individual.

There should be no excuse of Muslims trying to be acceptable to others, or trying to appear liberal, or not “fundamentalist”. These don’t hold water in front of Allah. You know what brothers and sisters, we are going into that grave alone. No support for your actions on earth will help you. No leniency by others who like you or respect you or even sympathize with you in handling of your personal mistakes can help you. Whatever wrongs you have done, you need to sort out yourself with Allah and Allah alone.

You all now realize that most of us, if not all of us, need proper Islamic Education to make up for what we missed in our backgrounds as children, youth, young adults, and adults. We need to study and understand Islamic Monotheism properly. Many of us don’t know the core teachings of Islam especially the Tawhiid yet we want to contribute to debates with religious aspects. People invest time and resources to get all types of degrees and certificates to get good employment and never found time to study their Diin apart from the basics and somehow blame parents for not teaching them Diin.

Remedy: Look for opportunities to acquire Islamic knowledge. Join short and Intensive holiday courses lasting 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks or one month for Tawheed and Arabic langauage courses, Qur’an and Arabic courses, Qur’an and Hadiith etc. JUST GO AFTER THAT ISLAMIC KNOWLEDGE!!!

Lets check our ideological dichotomy. All of US want to be appreciated as MuslimS but some of us still think behaving like a non Muslim is better – because we will be liked by a lot of people… This is the tragedy of our so called liberal Muslims!

May Allah humble us to the absolute need to learn out deen, forgive our so many shortcomings and reward our few good deeds. Ameen.

hakim abdalla
abdalla.hakim@gmail.com

Documentary:The Boy With Divine Powers

Ram Bahadur Bomjon (born c. 9 April 1990), also known as Palden Dorje, and now Dharma Sangha, is from Ratanapuri village, Bara district, Nepal. Some of his supporters have claimed that he is a reincarnation of the Buddha, but Ram himself has denied this, and many practitioners of Buddhism agree that the Buddha has entered nirvana and cannot be reborn.

He drew thousands of visitors and media attention by spending months in meditation. Nicknamed the Buddha Boy, he began his meditation on 16 May 2005. He reportedly disappeared from the hollow tree where he had been meditating for months on 16 March 2006, but was found by some followers a week later. He told them he had left his meditation place, where large crowds had been watching him, “because there is no peace”. He then went his own way and reappeared elsewhere in Nepal on 26 December 2006, but left again on 8 March 2007. On 26 March 2007, inspectors from the Area Police Post Nijgadh in Ratanapuri found Bomjon meditating inside a bunker-like ditch seven feet square.

Over the following years after this documentary, Bomjon has reappeared and blessed thousands of pilgrims – only to disappear again and meditate. Watch the video and tell us what you think. What does Islam say about such people?

Watch the videos on the link below:

Documentary:Twist of Faith

Twist of Faith focuses on Tony Comes, a firefighter from Toledo, Ohio, who was first sexually abused by a Catholic priest when he was a fourteen-year-old student at a Catholic high school. Feeling ashamed, Comes kept his secret for nearly 20 years but was forced to confront his past after discovering that the priest, Dennis Gray, was living on the same street as Comes, his wife, and their two young children. Comes decided to go public and bring a lawsuit against the priest and Church leaders who had neglected to take action after reading a series of investigative stories in The Toledo Blade revealing sweeping patterns of abuse and cover up in the diocese—including interviews with other Gray victims.

The filmmakers gave Comes and his wife camcorders which they used to record many of the film’s scenes. Twist of Faith also includes other older family footage, including a scene in which Comes explains his abuse to his nine-year-old daughter.

The film also features interviews with several other men who had been abused by Gray, and these survivors reunite to discuss their continuing struggles. Other scenes include Dennis Gray’s deposition in which he avoids responding to charges of abuse and coverup, Comes’s confrontation with his mother about her decision to stand by the Catholic Church, and Comes’s visit to a conference held by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

Released in 2004. 90 min. Director: Kirby Dick. Documentary film.
WATCH VIDEO HERE:

DID JESUS DIE?????

This film investigates the variety of stories surrounding the New Testament account of the crucifixion, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, by interviewing historians, theologians and historical researchers. It is an exploration of the latest theories about what really happened to Jesus 2000 years ago; which uncovers some surprising possibilities.

At the heart of the mystery is the suspicion that Jesus might not actually have died on the cross. The film concludes that it was perfectly possible to survive crucifixion in the 1st Century – there are records of people who did. But if Jesus survived, what happened to him afterwards?

One of the most remarkable stories concerns the charismatic preacher Jus Asaf (Leader of the Healed) who arrived in Kashmir in around 30 AD. Just before he died at the age of 80, Jus Asaf claimed that he was in fact Jesus Christ. This documentary shows his tomb, next to which are his carved footprints which bear the scars of crucifixion.
As Muslims, we believe that Jesus( prophet Issa) did not die, and he will come back before the day of judgement. Tell us what you have learned from this video:

SEXUAL TECHNIQUES IN ISLAM

Before I start writing anything about sexual techniques, it is necessary to say that no rules and laws exist either in foreplay or in intercourse. The only laws and rules are the ones reached by the lovers by mutual and often unspoken understanding. Whatever is pleasing and satisfying to both the husband and the wife is right and proper; and whatever is mutually displeasing is wrong. The only I imitation to this general rule would be any shari’ah rule which goes against the wishes of the husband or the wife.

(A) Foreplay:

Man often forgets that woman also has been created with the same desires as himself. Asbagh bin Nubatah quotes Imam ‘Ali that, “Almighty God created sexual desires in ten parts; then He gave nine parts to women and one to men.” But then Allah also gave them “equal parts of shyness.” (Wasa’il, vol. 14, p. 40) Many times this shyness makes the man ignore the desires of his wife.

Based on this reality, Islam emphasizes on foreplay. Imam ‘Ali says, “When you intend to have sex with your wife, do not rush because the woman (also) has needs (which should be fulfilled).” (Wasa’il, vol. 14, p. 40) Sex without foreplay has been equated to cruelty. The Prophet said, “Three people are cruel: . ..a person who has sex with his wife before foreplay.” (Wasa’il, vol. 14, p. 40) Another hadith equates sex without foreplay to animal behavior: “When anyone of you has sex with his wife, then he should not go to them like birds; instead he should be slow and delaying.” (Wasa’il, vol. 14, p. 82) The Prophet said, “No one among you should have sex with his wife like animals; rather there should be a messenger between them.” When asked about the messenger, he said, “It means kissing and talking.” (Tahzibu’l-Ihya, vol. 3, p. 110) Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq has been quoted as follows, “…there should be mutual foreplay between them because it is better for sex.” (Wasa’il, vol. 14, p. 82) The Prophet said, “…every play of a believer is void except in three cases: horse-riding, archery and mutual foreplay with his wife these are haqq.” (Wasa’il, vol. 14, p. 83)

As for the role of a woman in sexual foreplay, the Imams have praised a wife who discards shyness when she is with her husband. A hadith was quoted earlier from Imam ‘Ali which said that women have been given nine-tenths of the sexual desire but Allah has also given them nine-tenths of shyness. (See p. 32) I had promised in Chapter Two to explain the rationale behind this hadith. There might seem to be a contradiction in this act of God, but it is not so. Both the sexual desire and the shyness have been placed for very specific purpose. The sexual desire is to be unleashed, yes unleashed, when a woman is with her husband, but it must be shielded with shyness when she is with other people. This has been very eloquently explained by Imam Muhammad al-Baqir when he said, “The best woman among you is the one who discards the armor of shyness when she undresses for her husband, and puts on the armor of shyness when she dresses up again.” (Wasa’il, vol. 14, p. 14-15) After all, modesty and chastity in public is the hallmark of a Muslim lady.

These sayings clearly show that the husband and the wife should feel completely free when they are engaged in mutual stimulation which is known as foreplay. There is nothing wrong, according to Islam, for a woman to be active and responsive during sex. This is diametrically opposed to the sexual morality of the Christian Western world before the sexual revolution. Russell says, “Western women of a generation or two ago can recall being warned by their mothers that sexual intercourse was an unpleasant duty which they owed to their husbands, and that they were ‘to lie still and think of England’. (As quoted in Sex and Destiny, p. 94) What else but a sexual revolt could such a morality breed?

As for the Islamic shari’ah, all the mujtahids are unanimous in saying that the act of sexual foreplay in itself is mustahab (recommended). Likewise, it is recommended not to rush into sexual intercourse. (Al-‘Urwah, p. 625) The operative word is mutual pleasure and satisfaction.’

Techniques of Foreplay:

As far as the methods of mutual stimulation in foreplay are concerned, the shari’ah allows the husband and the wife to see, kiss, touch, smell and stimulate any part of each other’s body. Therefore, oral sex, as it is known in this part of the world is allowed. Imam Musa al-Kazim was once asked, “Can a person kiss his wife’s vagina?” The Imam said, “No problem.” (Wasa’il, vol. 14, p. 77; for similar views of present mujtahids see al-‘Urwah, p. 625) The only restriction is that no foreign object should be used. And this restriction is quite understandable: nothing can really substitute the things Allah has created in our bodies!

The restriction I am placing on the use of foreign objects is based on the following hadith. ‘Ubaydullah bin Zurarah says that he had an old neighbor who owned a young slave-girl. Because of his old age, he could not fully satisfy the young slave-girl during sexual intercourse. She would therefore ask him to place his fingers in her vagina as she liked it. The old man complied with her wishes even though he did not like this idea. So he requested ‘Ubaydullah to ask Imam ‘ Ali ar-Riza (a. s.) about it. When ‘Ubaydullah asked the Imam about it, the Imam said, “There is no problem as long as he uses any part of his own body upon her, but he should not use any thing other than his body on her.” (Wasa’il, vol. 14, p. 77)

In an earlier discussion, we said that masturbation (i.e., self-stimulation of one’s own sexual organ till emission of semen or orgasm) is not allowed. However, in the case of married persons, there is no problem if the wife stimulates her husband’s penis till the emission of semen or the husband stimulates his wife’s vagina till orgasm. (This issue has also been clearly mentioned by the late Ayatullah al-Khu’i in answer to some questions sent by an ‘alim from London) This is allowed because it does not come under “self-stimulation;” it is stimulation by a lawful partner. The Qur’an clearly says that, “The believers are.. . those who protect their sexual organs except from their spouses.” (23: 5-6) And stimulation of sexual organs by a lawful partner surely comes under the definition of protecting one’s organ s “except from their spouses.” ‘

Uganda Elite Muslims should not encourage early teenage marriages

Students at Aisha Girls High School in Isingiro district. How do you tell these all girls to all get married instead of being in school-full time?

Dear brothers and sisters,

Assalamu Alaikum,

In response to a discussion that has taken place on UMBS forum, regarding marrying off our precious young or underage daughters; I would like to make three contributions. First of all, I am very disappointed to see that among the people that have supported this are our very educated and our model Muslim brothers and sisters in Uganda. I am not disputing or encouraging our young ones to get married when they feel ready because marriage is one of the major obligations a Muslim should fulfill. Marriage in Islam is not intended for fun but should be a life time commitment when two people in love decide to live together for the rest of their lives. In this case, you are deciding for your precious daughter or son to take a commitment just because you have noticed he is having wet dreams or undergoing puberty changes. Will this be parental guidance for your children you are supposed to love to bits or this is due to some selfish reasons that we need to multiply and increase the population just because you have got a ‘’muzigo’’ (boys’ quarters) behind your main house for your son. It is a shame that we the same Muslims of this modern generation have purposely ignored to increase and encourage our children to be higher achievers compared to our counterparts from other religions.

There is one brother, a member of this forum, who visited a few western countries and one of them was Canada. This Muslim brother came to narrate his fascination on the UMBS on how he saw the young Muslim teenage girls proudly dressed in their hijabs and ready to show that they were Muslims. However, I will also want to tell the UMBS that these girls do not only stop dressing as Muslims but they are encouraged by their loving Muslim parents to practice Islam. This is done by the parents taking their children to ‘’madrasas’’ despite the busy schedules they have got in the western life. They also encourage these girls to get their education and hence having a productive life as parents in future.

Secondly dear brothers, I must admit that in so many family settings in Uganda, our Muslim parents or the Muslim leader have not encouraged Madrasa classes after the secular education especially for those kids in day schools. Meanwhile for the children in boarding schools this is worse because they even don’t see their parents practicing the religion. Apart from the Muslim names we give to our children nothing can identify them as Muslims or prompt them to behave like one and that is the main reasons why the Ugandan Muslim youth musicians has grown or the so called queen dancers. Now then there you go blame these children going wild and then your solution is to have them married off at an underage. Will that ever be a solution to their ‘’zina’’ or being unfaithful even in their marriages. If these kids went into a marriage with no fear for Allah, how do you expect the marriages to ever work? So my dears, lets educate our children both in our religion and the secular religion and you will not see those girls on the streets committing Zina. It is should not be about the big Muslim population, but it should be the quality Muslim population.

Mr. Okiror the head master Kabojja Junior school

How can you even suggest that instead of encouraging your daughter to finish her education and then get married, you should marry her off in senior 2 to a man and then continue educating her from a man’s house? Is that a joke! Muslims let get serous and the main thing should be that it should be an individual family or a community getting together to encourage teaching not only the Quran to our children but teaching them how a Muslim woman or man should be behaving. Then you will have dignified young population.

For instance, among the Zanzibaris communities either at home or abroad, they have parental responsibility to make sure that their children attend madras and secular education. They do this even they are outside Africa. But there are so many teenagers in Africa, particularly Uganda, who don’t know how to recite the Quran even if their parents, are well known and respected members of the community.

Amina Semuwemba
UK

Uganda Muslim Community Revival. (UMCR) or Muslim Community Revival (MCR) for Global approach.

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

 

Alhamdulillah, Brs and Sis in Islam, I thank you for the wonderful effort to try to inspire each other for the revival of our community. I Just have a little in put regarding this issue – I call it revival because whatever we need for the community to function according to the Quran and the teaching of Muhammad (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) it’s in place at our own access – each time we recite surat AL-fatiha – We do ask Allah subhaanahu wa Taala to guide us to the straight path (Ihdinanas-Siraatal-Mus-taqeem). To find that path and remain steadfast on that path and die while on that path requires some efforts. Efforts like sacrifices, behavior change, commitment, responsibility, hardwork, physical movement, contribution of time, wealth and health, passionate for attaining Jannat and above all Ikhlas (Sincerity– that whatever we do should be for the pleasure of Allah Subhaanahu Wa Taala alone)! For Akhirat – (to be saved from Jahannam and attain Jannat). This has to be firm in our Hearts as any individual as well as collectively in the whole community.

 

The foundation we need to use for our community revival is already with each and everybody on this forum (I believe) and it has been used before. Those you used it benefited in this World and Hereafter, Allah subhaanahu wa taala is telling us in the Quran Surat al-Bayyinal (ayah 8….Radiyal-laahu anhum…) Allah being pleased with them. So if we use the same foundation and model – then we will benefit as well in this LIFE and Hereafter insha Allah. The Foundation is Islam and the Model is Quran, Sunnah and the three first Generations of Islam. Teacher was Muhammad (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam), Students were the Sahabah (Radiyal-laahu anhum) and the Institution was Masjid.

 

First a reminder about the purpose of man in this Ummah:

1. Abd- a servant (of Allah only, not a slave of himself or other creations)
2. Ibaadee-  a worshipper (of Allah alone, not a worshipper of anything else) – Iyyaaka Nabudu …
3. A caller (reminding Muslims and calling non Muslims to Allah).

The other things we do or have a just means or tests/trials to use to achieve the above three.

Therefore the individual implementation of complete Islam in your own daily life will lead to community revival.

 

The building blocks for the revival:

 

Category one

1. Allah subhaanahu wa Taala – We cannot do anything without the help of Allah (…iyyaaka nastaeen), so we have to put our Trust in Allah for the success in this life and life hereafter.
2. The Holy Quran – the source of guidance, any other guidance will lead us to failure.
3. Sunnah of Muhammad (Sallallahu alaihi wa salaam) – if we practice the sunnah on daily life in all situations and conditions, we will never go astray.
4. Sahabah`s understand of Deen – the guiding stars and role models – if we hold firm on their way then we have achieved number 1, 2 and 3 above.
5. Righteous believers – they have the above 1,2,3 and 4 and have concern for others that how can ALL humanity be saved from Jahannam and go to Jannat.

This is the worry and concern Muhammad (Sallallahu alaihi wa salaam) had – Ummat, Ummat, Ummat.

 

Category two

1. Home – Women, children and Youth, (individual level – this is the starting point for the revival)
2. Local Masjid as a community center not just for salaat only (collective level – social events, education, dawat, charity distribution, salaat in congregation Fajr and insha to be like Jumah salaat!)
3. Local approach – exactly area of residence (local masjid) has to be known to others for establishment of a network.       (Regional? Global?) 

 

Category three

1. Amir – decision maker in that locality, after doing Mashwara – a seeker of opinion never loses and the seeker of consultation never repents –. Current Statistics about his population, skills, services, energy, resources etc.
2. Mashwara – consultation at home/masjid, discussions (online forum?) – participates – have to obey and respect Amir`s decisions. –“….We hear and We Obey..” attitude .

 

Category four

1. Brotherhood – initiated by some individual(s) without personal interest or hidden agenda. Highly motivated individuals to approach local religious leaders, intellectuals, professionals, businessmen and others to connect them to the Masjid and all the Mashwara taking place in the local masjid.
2. unite – common interest – Pleasing Allah alone, so we have to help each other
3. Everyone has to know what behavior not to be tolerated.
4. Each individual has to be willing to sacrifice his wealth, time and health for the benefit of The Deen and all creations.

 

These below has to be discussed after the above has been firm in the hearts of people in the community willing to help each other for the sake of Allah and Deen.

 

Category five

1. Other goals – projects, activities, programmes
2. funding
3. Muslim village with self contained system and services

 

The Amir of UMCin UK says– Be a Muslim and then be a Muganda (or other culture) but do not be vise verse.

Teach Women/girls because she can be a nation – community.

 

Conclution: how to put all that above in practical way – it will be send next time insha Allah. Forgive me brothers and sisters for any errors or mistakes in this piece. I am just a student and I am here to learn, please correct me where I am wrong. I ask Allah to help us – if there is any good in this piece let us benefit from it and any harm – Oh Allah protect us from it, Ameen. I ask Allah to forgive me and guide me that next time I can do better. Ameen

 

Br.Sulaiman Nsubuga (Abu Abdullah)

Streatham Masjid

South West London

UK

Europe

”Eddogo” or witchcraft in Africa

Assalamu Alaikum brothers and Sisters,

The educated in Africa use ‘Eddogo’ as escapism when they are mentally ill while the uneducated are understandbly just ignorant. Nevertheless, Africans need to stop calling people with mental health problems”mad’ because It is a bad tag that has made a lot of people to conceal this problem because of the stigma people have towards people with mental health.

In USA, for example, during their last presidential campaigns, I heard that one of the presidential candidates, McCain, attempted suicide twice long time ago, yet his campaign refused to release his full mental health records to the public. Nevertheless, his opponents did not make too much political capital out of it. If it was in Uganda, even president Museveni would have made it a serious campaign issue as he did with Besigye and HIV in 2001.

The truth is that mental illness is a real, debilitation disease, every bit as serious as cancer or heart disease, but it can be treated with the right medication. If anyone needs proof, they just read Bukedde newspaper every day. The stories there are so shocking. One approach to help you identify the mentally ill in our society is to understand their psychological processes. Once you understand why these people behave so irrationally, you can communicate more effectively with them.

There are a lot of stories in Bukedde where you find a man or woman who has killed their entire family simply due to depression and anxiety, but people still keep talking about Vodoo/Eddogo/ Jinns.

By the way, I have got a theory about witchcraft or Eddogo in poor societies. I believe things like witchcraft are signs of a poor and broken society. I also believe that witchcraft among family members symbolizes a broken and divided family within an already broken and poor society. If the society is already broken, witchcraft plays a role to save lives in big numbers in the sense that at least people don’t resort to practical means to settle their differences. If, for instance, woman A realizes that witchcraft does not work against woman B, she could find it easy to resort to practical ways of eliminating Woman B, but because she believes in witchcraft woman B is still breathing.

With a society with fewer resources to solve murders, I think witchcraft itself may be a blessing in disguise. I think it was naturally designed to save the lives of an ignorant population. As the country’s middle class increases, things like witchcraft and mental illness will be brought more in the lime light and get addressed urgently. At the moment, there isn’t a lot that is going to change in a country, like Uganda, as far as these issues are concerned. Yes, we can get the media to keep the fire burning but it won’t make much difference because the policy makers in the country themselves are ‘escapists”.

Obviously, because religion too has been weakened in the society, it is very easy for someone mentally ill to be easily convinced that there is someone doing ‘eddogo’ on them. Some of the religious leaders have also sadly made it a business to confuse Africans who are not well mentally. The most important thing is for all family members to be understanding when one of their own is not well mentally because it can easily happen on anyone.

However, what is happening in developing countries now was almost a similar story even in developed nations, such as USA, till when the society eventually changed itself politically, economically and socially.

In USA, for instance, mental patients were once treated as prisoners. The mental health movement of the 1950s led by the national Mental Health Association was able to remove public mental hospitals from control by prison authorities and place them under medical administrators. In the 1960s, the same folks made it possible for people who needed treatment in Community Mental Health Centers instead of hospitals. It was almost the same story in the UK when you visit their history. The Welsh were the biggest ‘Balogo’ in the UK, but all that is now water under the bridge because their societies have changed tremendously. Africa will also change with time as it keeps developing.

 Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba

HIJAB DOES NOT MEAN OPPRESSION OF WOMEN

Dear friends,

I have come to notice that a lot of people are ignorant about the meaning of the veil or Hijab in Islam especially considering that our neighbours in Britain, the French, have started arresting women dressed in Burqa in public. I don’t wish to turn this into a quranic based debate because even if there was evidence in the Quran that things like polygamy or wearing hijab or Burqa are supported by certain verses, there are people with power in this world who are determined not to listen. They see Islam as walking anachronism, as something against liberty, freedom, and progress. When somebody is seeing Islam in this sense, it leads to ‘islamphobia’. However, for the sake of this debate, I wish to say that there is a body of evidence in the Quran that supports Hijab. For example, in the following Qur’anic verses addressing women’s clothing, it is stated:

And say to the believing women that they should avert their gaze and guard their modesty, and they should not display their adornment except what is apparent thereof, and they should throw their veils over their bosoms, and not display their adornment except to their husbands or fathers. (Holy Qur’an 24:31)

O Prophet, tell your wives and the women of the believers that they should bring some of their cloaks closer/nearer to themselves, that is a minimum [measure] so that they would be recognized as such and hence not molested.(Holy Qur’an 33:59)

Before these verses were revealed, Arab women used to wear something called Khimar(a long headscarf that flowed loosely around their shoulders) but the breasts were a bit exposed. As far as I know, there are no sanctions in the Quran for not covering but obviously this is based on different interpretation of different scholars. There is lack of consensus among the scholars on whether the whole face should be covered or not, but my personal view is that we should encourage and respect those women who at least take the initiative to cover up or dress decently.

When a Muslim woman puts on a hijab, head scarf, or whatever, people tend to look at them in the west as ‘oppressed’, ‘backward’ and ‘uneducated’, something I find so absurd. Actually, what some people don’t know is that historically, the veil or Hijab was the marker of a free woman versus a slave or concubine and set certain social and sexual parameters for the engagement of men with these different social and class based categories of women. But as a result of this ignorance of cultural and religious values in the west, Muslim women have been discriminated against especially in terms of jobs or what we call ‘ being picked upon’ here in the UK. For instance, Muslim girls in schools in France, Turkey and Quebec have been exiled from public schools because of their Hijabs.  It even makes it worse when some states such as France, Belgium and Netherlands come out with laws that are targeting the minority of women that are putting on ‘Burqa’ . This has only increased further discrimination of Muslim women in the society; something I believe should not be engineered by any responsible state.

France has banned the Burqa but it looks like they are also not tolerant with ‘Hijab’. For instance, in 1989 three Muslim adolescent girls were denied access to public school because they wore the hijab or headscarf, an act that defies a 1937 French law prohibiting the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in government run schools.

I sometimes wonder why the Catholic Church does not come out to support Muslims on this because the Catholic churches used to require women to wear scarves. Why they abandoned it, I don’t know yet. During the 1900s, the head covering gradually disappeared from many Protestant churches, which dropped their requirement that women cover their heads during the church service. The Roman Catholic Church omitted it in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. But, all the same, it becomes an infringement on individual human rights when we start supporting laws in schools and public life that are targeting women who dress according to their religious norms.  Here in the UK, People shave their heads, wear rings through their noses, and private parts and dye their hair, but society is not bothered with them because it’s their right but why would it be necessary to target a woman who decide to cover almost all her body when outside her house?.

In any case, a lot of Muslims are immigrating to the west, and some are individually abandoning their religious and cultural norms for western way of living. This is something that is happening without any law in place necessitating them to change for western life. While it takes two, three, or four generations, it has shown that 99.9% of immigrants fully adapt to the Western lifestyle no matter where they are from. New immigrants settle in their own little towns, continue to speak their own  language, and practice their own culture, but history has shown that after a  few generations their children, grand children, great-grand children, and  great-great-grand children and each following generation finds it easier to fully adapt to the country as they slowly lose the old cultural practices.  They become English only speakers and they fully or most fully adapt to western values.  You will always find some exceptions to this, but this what history has proven.

I think women should be allowed to put on anything they want as long as they are not bothering anyone. Obviously, factors such as decency, culture and religion should always be put into consideration.

Byebyo ebyange

Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba

UK

Pastor Umar Mulinde ignorantly Attacks Qadhi courts & Islamic Banking on Top Television

Last evening while watching TV i bumped into Pastor Umar Mulinde on Top Television discussing the planned introduction of the Qadhi courts in Uganda. Mulinde [A murtadi] was spitting fire how they can not allow the introduction of Islam into the constitution of Uganda.

He told his ignorant audience that the introduction of the Qadhi court is likelyto impose Islam on Christians because they will be subjected to Islamic Sharia law [Sic].  He castigated Sharia and said that Qadhi courts are only a disaster because when they have led to untold suffering. He cited the example of Nigeria where he claimed that about 20 pastors were murdered the same day, the Qadhi courts came into force.

Back ground, Uganda Muslim Supreme Council has been pushing for the introduction of Kadhi courts to address family issues that include, Marriage, Inheritance and Divorce. The proposal was accepted by government and hence incorporate in the domestic relations bill that has since changed names. In fact sometime last year, the Law Reform Commission asked UMSC supreme council to identify Muslims with degrees in Sharia who would be retrained and taken through LDC in preparation for the Qadhi courts. However, this seems to have attracted rage
from our Christian brothers like Mulinde.

The proposed Qadhi courts will only be limited to particular areas because no christian can allow Muslims to practice sharia. These courts have worked very well in places like Kenya. In fact i challenged on his misinformation and in reply he wrote “You are a true liar. Kenya has never operationalise [sic] Kadhi court, they have just included them recently and Kenya constitution judged them illegal, undemocratic and unconstitutional. Be objective to know that one state can not logically have two different laws in one constitution”.

I find his argument based on ignorance, the Ugandan constitution acknowledges that Islamic marriages, Hindu Marriages and Civil marriages. Now, the Muslims are saying if our marriages are conducted according to Islam lets also handle problems arising there in accordance with Islam.

He also attacked the planned introduction of Islamic banking in Uganda. I think its our responsibility to read and understand these matters and educate our people. Thanks

Ahmed Wetaka
P.O BOX 2488
Mbale- Uganda
Mobile +256 772 609736

How Does A Muslim Feel After Being involved in witchcraft? Should u keep a Muslim as a friend after knowing that they are mushiriqu?

Superstitions and underdevelopment in Africa

By KAYODE KETEFE

‘How Europe underdeveloped Africa’ is a popular book by a Guyana-born renowned African intellectual and political activist, Walter Rodney. In that 1972 classic, Rodney analysed the complex historical forces and their impact on Africa’s socio-economic realities. He came to the conclusion that the systemic exploitation of Africa by the imperialist Europeans, via slave trade, colonialism and neo-colonialism was responsible for the poor state of African political and economic development in the late 20th Century, and that development would only be feasible if Africa effected a radical break with the international capitalist system.

While there could be no denying the fact that the exogenous factors like slave trade, colonialism et al have had pernicious effects on the continent’s quest for development, the factors could not totally explain why quality, sustainable development had always eluded Africa. To start with, the factors themselves do not explain why there was huge chasm in the rate of development in the first instance which made it possible for all the said exploitations to be possible-(exploitations merely aggravated the existing differential rate of development among nations.) Secondly, these traditional factors do not satisfactorily explain why, since the demise of colonialism (and neo-colonialism?) Africa has found it impossible to lay the foundation of her own progress. Thus, a new theory which goes beyond apportionment of blame is needed to unravel the basis of the unenviable status of the black man among the races-a theory that could offer alternative view to the conventional rationalisation.

To this end, this writer hereby offers another, albeit often overlooked, theoretical causative agent of Africa’s underdevelopment. He posits that Africa’s woes are emanations of self-inflicted mental laxity borne of attitudinal lack of hunger for knowledge; it consists of undue complacency and uncritical acceptance of appearances as the real things. These deficiencies, to this writer, are the greatest bane responsible for the comparative backwardness of this continent. It is not true that there is genetic deficiency in the constitution of an African which predisposes him to mental inferiority as some bigoted racists would have us belief. Rather the whole problem is purely attitudinal.  From time immemorial, Africans, in comparison to other races, have exhibited apathy to exploit human greatest asset- the human brain to the fullest. Yet, the human brain which God or nature (whichever you prefer) has endowed us with is the only proven tool through which the secrets of the universe could be unlocked. Knowledge is the only pathway to success via technological growth and development.

All the people of the world had one time or the other been enveloped in the same dark age of ignorance -an era when recourse was always had to the supernatural forces for solutions to mankind’s problems. It was an era when diseases were seen as the handiwork of witches and wizards and all forms of calamity were deemed orchestrated by incensed deities who must be placated by sacrifices and propitiatory offerings. But the truth dawned on Europe long ago and it led to her renaissance and later the industrial revolution.  Ever since that time, Europe has not looked back as she embarked on accelerated pursuit of empirical knowledge, while systematically demolishing the myths which had held mankind in bondage over the ages.  Other parts of the world, like the Americans and the now successful countries of Asia, followed suit, channelling their energies to scientific researches and developmental pursuits. But here in Africa, we are still enmeshed in primitive superstitions, like we have always done, holding all sorts of beliefs that are not empirically verifiable and which are inimical to progress.

The European conquered our forefathers and imposed colonialism, not because they were inherently superior, but because they had superior understanding of the laws of nature, which aided them in the manufacture of superior weapons. We failed to learn anything from that. Even today, our society brims with behaviours informed by superstitions. Children are branded witches and wizards in some parts of country and are being subjected to harrowing experiences through trial by ordeal. We still see sacrifices, offered to some mediaeval spirits, on our highways. People are still being kidnapped for ritual killing- the incidence of which has soared in this period of politics. Our Nollywood films are replete with scenes of fantasies which mock realism-and prop anti-scientific views. Little wonder then we rarely announce scientific breakthroughs in any fields of human endeavours. If our ancestors had held and practiced certain beliefs which, instead of helping them, had made our continent the least developed part of the entire world, doesn’t commonsense dictate we should reject such beliefs in favour of logical and time-tested ones which had helped other people achieve greatness? It is high time we invested heavily on science and technology- the only guaranteed way to sustainable development.

‘OKWALULA ABALONGO’(Twin ceremonial event) is not part of Islam

Dear brothers and sisters,

I would like to know your ideas about this issue of ‘OKWALULA ABALONGO’(Twin ceremonial event) practiced among the Baganda. Is it something we should continue to do as Muslims? Shouldn’t we be promoting Islamic values such as AKIIKA instead of ‘OKWALULA ABALONGO’? What does Islam say about all these things?

Secondly, what is the best way to keep SHIRIQ out of our own families? Are there specific duas one can recite to protect one’s family from such evils?

Thanks

Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba

I would also like to be guided on the practice of visiting grandparents graves to they say  to “clear them ” of am not sure what but logic tells me overgrown weeds. Or else one suffers doom/failure attributed to not doing so. How Islamic is this, I have been struggling to avoid it for sometime now because it just doesn’t seem right. Kindly advise me as per the Holy Quranic teachings.

Aslmalkm

ANSWER


All praise be to Allah, who choose Islam the only  way for us to follow and he who imposed on  us to follow the way of his messenger and last prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). as the only to success in this life and the ever lasting life after.

In response to the questions and comments which have been going on for the last few weeks or so on the topic of  kwalula abalongo shirik and the rest

Dear brothers and sisters,

one thing we need to know as muslims is that grave punishment of falling into shirik. Allah the exalted said: .

4:116

surat an-nisai

Verily! Allah forgives not (the sin of) setting up partners in worship with Him, but He forgives whom he pleases sins other than that, and whoever sets up partners in worship with Allah, has indeed strayed far away.

 

These verses make it crystal clear that associating partners with God (shirk) will never be forgiven, every other sin you commit, major or minor can be forgiven. Hence a person must do his utmost to avoid this sin because if one dies upon this sin then this shall doom the person leaving no hope for him.

The prophet Muhammad himself stated:

Bukhari Volume 6, Book 60, Number 24:

Narrated ‘Abdullah:

The Prophet said one statement and I said another. The Prophet said “Whoever dies while still invoking anything other than Allah as a rival to Allah, will enter Hell (Fire).” And I said, “Whoever dies without invoking anything as a rival to Allah, will enter Paradise.”

So therefore there should be no doubt as to the severity of this sin, again I repeat one must do all he can to avoid this sin as it is the unforgivable sin and shall doom the one who commits it.

 

18:110

Say (O Muhammad SAW): “I am only a man like you. It has been inspired to me that your Allah (God) is One Allah (God i.e. Allah). So whoever hopes for the Meeting with his Lord, let him work righteousness and associate none as a partner in the worship of his Lord.”

Dear brother abbey having said the above, one need to know that okwalula abalongo is great shirk and there many other culture activities out there which have been invented and others we found our great fathers following but by declaring that there is no one who has a right (truly worshiped except Allah, is a statement that needs to acquire knowledge in order to remain to know what negates it and what affirms it in order to remain  a muslim.

1. by constantly making Dua to Allah to guide us and make us firm to his deen. one of them  as brother Abbey asked are there specific Du’a to invoke Allah to keep us away from shirk ?

yes

the messenger of Allah said that the hearts of the servants of the most merciful are between his fingers of Allah he changes them as he wish

so he used to make this du’a Allahumma, Ya Muqallibal Qulub, Thabbit qulubuna ala deenik “O Allah, O turner of hearts! Keep our hearts steadfast on your religion”, …

8.	Rabbana la tuzigh qulubana ba’da “idh hadaytana wa-hab lana min ladun-ka rahmatanh “innaka “anta al-wahhabu

[Who say], “Our Lord, let not our hearts deviate after You have guided us and grant us from Yourself mercy. Indeed, You are the Bestower.

It was narrated from Abu Sa’eed (may Allaah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “You will certainly follow the ways of those who came before you, handspan by handspan, cubit by cubit, until even if they entered the hole of a lizard, you will do so too.” We asked, “O Messenger of Allaah, (do you mean) the Jews and the Christians?” He said, “Who else?” (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 3269; Muslim, 2669).

this is the case nowdays unfortunately there are some scholars out there who are ready to do so or even stand advocates for such actions.
watch questions like Nabbi teyalina kika Yakilina naye teyansinzanga masanamu(idols) at all nga bo bwebakolanga, who ever says like that is a sign of not having knowledge about the manners of the messenger of Allah Peace be upon him: our mother Aisha was asked about his manners and she said ” his manners were the quran.”

It is not an excuse to follow them blindly because it will be said on the the of judgement:

14:21

Surat Ibrahim

Sahih International

And they will come out [for judgement] before Allah all together, and the weak will say to those who were arrogant, “Indeed, we were your followers, so can you avail us anything against the punishment of Allah ?” They will say, “If Allah had guided us, we would have guided you. It is all the same for us whether we show intolerance or are patient: there is for us no place of escape.”

so please be aware that it is not allowed do all these acts kwalula balongo, comemorating the day your father died exactly like others do do Jesus even if coming together and read the quran for the dead as widely practiced world wide and many more as the sister asked.

hope I have answered your questions. Allah is the all knower.




Therefore we must attend Khutbahs, Islamic Lectures, Mosques and Study Circles. It is unfortunate that many of us do not listen, and if they listen they do not understand. If the earth does not get any rain water, it will become dry and barren. Likewise, if the hearts do not receive any revelation or remembrance of Allah, then it will also become dry and barren. Whoever listens to Allah’s Call should respond. In S. Al Ahqaaf it states:(46:32)

Musa Mukwaya

15 tips on raising great kids!

Children are easily influenced by their surroundings. These days, it is extremely difficult to expose our children to an ideal Islamic environment given the influences from media, friends and even other members of the family.

With television, radio, Internet and forms of media mostly touting un-Islamic values, it is up to parents and adults close to the children to set the correct example.

It is impossible to shield our children from all the negative forces that can shape their minds and, ultimately, their behavior.

However, by our own example and showing them better options, we can set them on the true path, which is to obey the commandments of Allah (swt) and our Prophet (may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him).

Here are some tips you may want to follow in helping your children grow up with Islamic values.

Start by teaching them the importance of Worshipping only Allah: The best thing any Muslim parent could ever teach their children is to emphasize, from the day they can comprehend, that Allah (the Almighty) is One and no one is worthy of worship except Allah (the Almighty). This is the fundamental message of our Prophet (may Allah’s peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and it is our key to Paradise.

Treat them kindly: Kindness begets kindness. If we are kind to our children, they in turn will show kindness to others. Our Prophet (may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) was the best example in being kind to children.

Give them examples of Muslim heroes: Instead of Batman or Superman, tell them about real heroes such as Abu Bakr, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, Uthman ibn ‘Affan, ‘Ali bin Abi Talib and others. Tell them how Muslim leaders brought a real peaceful change in the world and won the hearts of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Let children sit with adults: It is preferable for children to be among adults, especially when listening to Islamic lectures. The Prophet (may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) would often put children in the front row when he spoke to the people.

Make them feel important: Consult them in family matters. Let them feel they are important members of the family and have a part to play in the growth and well being of the family.

Go out as a family: Take family trips rather than allowing your children to always go out only with their friends. Let your children be around family and friends from whom you want them to pick up their values. Always remember that your children will become who they are around with most of the time. So, watch their company and above all give them YOUR company.

Praise them: Praise is a powerful tool with children, especially in front of others. Children feel a sense of pride when their parents’ praise them and will be keen to perform other good deeds. However, praise must be limited to Islamic deeds and deeds of moral value.

Avoid humiliation: Similarly, do not humiliate them in front of others. Children make mistakes. Sometimes, these mistakes occur in their efforts to please the parents. If you are unhappy with your children, tell them in private.

Sports: The Prophet (may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him) encouraged sports such as swimming, running and horse riding. Other sports that build character and physical strength are also recommended, as long as the children maintain their Islamic identity, wear appropriate clothes and do not engage in unnecessary mixing.

Responsibility: Have faith in their abilities to perform tasks. Give them chores to do in line with their age. Convince them that they are performing an important function and you will find them eager to help you out again.

Don’t spoil them: Children are easily spoiled. If they receive everything they ask for, they will expect you to oblige on every occasion. Be wise in what you buy for them. Avoid extravagance and unnecessary luxuries. Take them to an orphanage or poor area of your city once in a while so they can see how privileged they are.

Don’t be just friends: It is common in the West for parents to consider their children as friends. In Islaam, it doesn’t work that way. If you have ever heard how friends talk to each other, then you will know that this is not how a parent-child relationship should be. You are the parents, and they should respect you, and this is what you should be teaching them. The friendship part should be limited to you and them keeping an open dialog so they can share their concerns with you and ask you questions when they have any.

Pray with them: Involve them in acts of worship. When they are young, let them see you in Salaah. Soon, they would be trying to imitate you. Wake them up for Fajr and pray as a family. Talk to them about the rewards of Salaah so that it doesn’t feel like a burden to them.

Emphasize the permissible: It is not always good to only say, “This is haraam, that is haraam”. While you must educate them on what are haraam things, Islaam is full of halaal; tell your children to thank Allah (the Almighty) for the bounties He has bestowed on them- not just for food and clothes. Tell them to be thankful for having eyes that see, ears that hear, arms and legs and, the ultimate blessing, Islaam in their hearts.

Set an example: As parents, you are the best example children can have. If you talk to your parents rudely, expect your children to do the same to you. If you are disrespectful to others, your children will follow too. Islaam is filled with Divine advice on the best ways to bring up your children. That makes it an obligation upon parents to be good Muslims so their children will try to emulate them. If you don’t take Islaam seriously, neither will your children. It goes back to our third point, which is to give them Islamic heroes. As a parent, you should be their number one hero.

sulaiman sulaiman

kavulu@hotmail.com

How to make your Husband happy ?

How to make your Husband happy ?

The following article is a summary of the book “How to Make Your Husband Happy” by Sheikh Mohammed Abdelhaleem Hamed. may Allah reward him

1. Beautiful Reception

After returning from work, school, travel, or whatever has separated you,

• Begin with a good greeting.
• Meet him with a cheerful face
• Beautify and perfume yourself
• Start with good news and delay any bad news until he has rested
• Receive him with loving and yearning sentences
• Make hard efforts for excellence of the food & having it ready on time.

2. Beautify and Soften the Voice

For your husband only, it shouldn’t be used in front of non-mahram men (men who can marry you if you were unmarried)

3. Smelling Good and Physical Beautification

• Take good care of your body and fitness.
• Put on nice and attractive clothes and perfumes.
• Bathe regularly and, after the monthly period, remove any blood traces or bad smells.
• Avoid that your husband observes you in dirty clothes or rough shape
• Avoid prohibited types of ornamentation, e.g. tatoos
• Use the types of perfumes, colors, and clothes that the husband likes
• Change hair style, perfumes, etc. from time to time However with these things you should avoid excessiveness and, of course only act as such in front of mahrem men and women.

4. Intercourse

• Hasten for intercourse when your husband feels compulsion for it.
• Keep your body clean and smelling good as possible including cleaning yourself of released fluids during intercourse.
• Exchange loving phrases with your husband.
• Leave your husband to fully satisfy his desire.
• Choose suitable times and good occasions for exciting your husband and encouraging him to do intercourse, e.g. after returning from a travel, weekends, etc.

5. Satisfaction With What Allah (subhaanahu wa ta’aalaa) Has Allotted

• You shouldn’t be depressed because your husband is poor or works in a simple job
• You should look at poor, sick, and handicapped people and remember Allah (subhaanahu wa ta’aalaa) for all that was given to you.
• You should remember that real wealth lies in faith and piety.

6. Indifference to Worldly Things

• You should not consider this world as your hope and interest.
• You should not ask your husband for many unnecessary things.
• Asceticism does not mean not to enjoy what is good and permissible (Halal), but it means that one should look forward to the Hereafter and utilize whatever Allah SWT gave them to achieve paradise (Al-Jannah).
• Encourage your husband to reduce expenses and save some money in order to give charity and feed poor and needy people.

7. Appreciation

• By the saying of the Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam), the majority of people in Hell were women because they were ungrateful and deny the good done to them.
• The result of being grateful is that your husband will love you more and will do his best to please you in more ways
• The result of being ungrateful is that your husband will be disappointed and will start asking himself: “Why should I do good to her, if she never appreciates?”

8. Devotion and Loyalty

• In particular in times of calamities in your husband’s body or business e.g. an accident or a bankruptcy
• Supporting him through your own work, money, and properties if needed.

9. Compliance to Him

• In all what he commands you, unless it is prohibited (Haram)
• In Islam, the husband is the leader of the family, and the wife is his support and consultant.

10. Pleasing Him If He Is Angry
First off, try to avoid what will guarantee his anger. But if it happens that you can’t, then try to appease him as follows:

• If you were mistaken, then apologize
• If he was mistaken then:
  Keep still instead of arguing or
  Yield you right or
  Wait until he is no longer angry and discuss the matter peacefully with him.
• If he was angry because of external reasons then:
  Keep silent until his anger goes
  Find excuses for him, e.g. tired, problems at work, someone insulted him
• Do not ask many questions and insist on knowing what happened e.g.
  1) You should tell me what happened!
  2) I must know what made you so angry!
  3) You are hiding something, and I have the right to know!

11. Guardianship While He is Absent

• Protect yourself from any prohibited relations
• Keep the secrets of the family, particularly intercourse and things that the husbands don’t like other people to know.
• Take care of the house and children.
• Take care of his money and properties
• Do not go out of your house without his permission and put on full hijaab
• Refuse people whom he does not like to come over
• Do not allow any non-mahram man to be alone with you in any place
• Be good with his parents and relatives in his absence

12. Showing Respect for his Family and Friends

• You should welcome his guests and try to please them, especially his parents.
• You should avoid problems as much as you can with his relatives.
• You should avoid putting him is a position where he had to choose between his mother and his wife
• Show good hospitality for his guests by arranging a nice place for them to sit in, perfection of food, welcoming their wives, etc.
• Encourage him to visit his relatives and invite them to your home
• Phone his parents and sisters, send letters to them, buy gifts for them, support them in calamities, etc…

13. Admirable Jealousy

• Jealousy is a sign for wife’s love for her husband but it should be kept within the limits of Islam, e.g. not insulting or backbiting others disrespecting them, etc…
• You should not follow or create unfounded doubts.

14. Patience and Emotional Support

• Be patient when you face poverty and strained circumstances.
• When you face calamities and disasters that may happen to you, your husband, his and your children, relatives or properties, e.g. diseases, accidents, death, etc.
• When facing hardships in Da’wah (imprisonment, getting fired, arrested etc.
• Be patient and encourage him to keep on the path of Allah and remind him of Paradise.
• When he mistreats you, counteract his ill-treatment by good treatment.

15. Support in Obedience to Allah, Da’wah and Jihad

• Cooperate with your husband and remind him of different obligatory and voluntary worships.
• Encourage him to pray at night.
• Listen and reciting the Qur’aan individually and with your husband.
• Listen to Islamic tapes  individually and with your husband.
• Remember Allah subhaanahu wa ta’aalaa, much, particularly after Fajr and before Maghrib.
• Share in arranging Da’wah activities for women and children.
• Learn Islamic rules (ahkaam) and good manners (‘adab) for women.
• Support your husband’s activities by encouraging him, offering wise opinions, soothing his pains, etc.
• Yielding some of your rights and a part of your time with your husband for Da’wah
• Encourage him to bring home ala earnings remind him that you and children will be in the preservation of Allah, subhaanahu wa ta’aalaa.

16. Good Housekeeping

• Keep it clean, decorated and well arranged
• Change house arrangements from time to time to avoid boredom
• Perfect food (preparation) and prepare healthy foods
• Learn all the necessary skills for managing the house, e.g. sewing
• Learn how to raise children properly and in an Islamic way.

17. Preservation of Finances and the Family

• Do not spend from his money, even for charity without his permission unless you are sure that he agrees on this.
• Protect his house, car, etc. while he is absent.
• Keep the children in good shape, clean clothes, etc. Take care of their nutrition, health, education, manners, etc. Teach them Islam and tell them the stories of the Prophets and companions.

may Allah reward all those who work hard to teach others and tose who try hard to leave as muslims

Musa Mukwaya

Ruling on celebrating Valentine’s Day

What is the ruling on Valentine’s Day?.

Praise be to Allaah.

Firstly: 

Valentine’s Day is a jaahili Roman festival, which continued to be celebrated until after the Romans became Christian. This festival became connected with the saint known as Valentine who was sentenced to death on 14 February 270 CE. The kuffaar still celebrate this festival, during which immorality and evil are practised widely. For more details on this celebration, please see: Celebrating Valentine’s Day. 

Secondly: 

It is not permissible for a Muslim to celebrate any of the festivals of the kuffaar, because festivals come under the heading of shar’i issues which are to be based on the sound texts. 

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: Festivals are part of sharee’ah, clear way and rituals of which Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning): 

“To each among you, We have prescribed a law and a clear way”

[al-Maa’idah 5:48] 

“For every nation We have ordained religious ceremonies which they must follow”

[al-Hajj 22:67] 

— such as the qiblah (direction faced in prayer), prayer and fasting. There is no difference between their participating in the festival and their participating in all other rituals. Joining in fully with the festival is joining in with kufr, and joining in with some of its minor issues is joining in with some of the branches of kufr. Indeed, festivals are one of the most unique features that distinguish various religions and among their most prominent symbols, so joining in with them is joining in with the most characteristic and prominent symbols of kufr. No doubt joining in with this may lead to complete kufr.                                                 

Partially joining in, at the very least, is disobedience and sin. This was indicated by the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) when he said: “Every people has its festival and this is our festival.” This is worse than joining them in wearing the zinaar (a garment that was worn only by ahl al-dhimmah) and other characteristics of theirs, for those characteristics are man-made and are not part of their religion, rather the purpose behind them is simply to distinguish between a Muslim and a kaafir. As for the festival and its rituals, this is part of the religion which is cursed along with its followers, so joining in with it is joining in with something that is a cause of incurring the wrath and punishment of Allaah. End quote from Iqtida’ al-Siraat al-Mustaqeem (1/207). 

He also said (may Allaah have mercy on him): It is not permissible for the Muslims to imitate them in anything that is uniquely a part of their festivals, whether it be food, clothing, bathing, lighting fires, refraining from a regular habit, doing acts of worship or anything else. It is not permissible to give a feast or to give gifts, or to sell anything that will help them to do that for that purpose, or to allow children and others to play games that are part of the festivals, or to wear one’s adornments. 

To conclude: the Mulsims should not do any of their rituals at the time of their festivals; rather the day of their festival should be like any other day for the Muslims. The Muslims should not do anything specific in imitation of them. End quote from Majmoo al-Fataawa (25/329). 

Al-Haafiz al-Dhahabi (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: If the Christians have a festival, and the Jews have a festival, it is only for them, so no Muslim should join them in that, just as no Muslim should join them in their religion or their direction of prayer. End quote from Tashabbuh al-Khasees bi Ahl al-Khamees, published in Majallat al-Hikmah (4/193) 

The hadeeth to which Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah referred was narrated by al-Bukhaari (952) and Muslim (892) from ‘Aa’ishah (may Allaah be pleased with her) who said: Abu Bakr came in and there were two young girls of the Ansaar with me who were singing about what had happened to the Ansaar on the day of Bu’aath. She said: And they were not (professional) singing girls. Abu Bakr said: “Musical instruments of the shaytaan in the house of the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)?!” and that was on the day of Eid. The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “O Abu Bakr, every people has a festival and this is our festival.” 

Abu Dawood (1134) narrated that Anas (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: When the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) came to Madeenah, they had two days when they would play. He said: “What are these two days?” They said: “We used to play on these days during the Jaahiliyyah.” The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Allaah has given you instead of them two days that are better than them: the day of al-Adha and the day of al-Fitr.” This hadeeth was classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Saheeh Abi Dawood. 

This indicates that festivals are among the characteristics by which nations are distinguished, and it is not permissible to celebrate the festivals of the ignorant and the mushrikeen (polytheists). 

The scholars have issued fatwas stating that it is haraam to celebrate Valentine’s Day. 

1 –Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen (may Allaah have mercy on him) was asked: 

In recent times the celebration of Valentine’s Day has become widespread, especially among female students. It is a Christian festival where people dress completely in red, including clothes and shoes, and they exchange red flowers. We hope that you can explain the ruling on celebrating this festival, and what your advice is to Muslims with regard to such matters; may Allaah bless you and take care of you. 

He replied: 

Celebrating Valentine’s Day is not permissible for a number of reasons.  

1-     It is an innovated festival for which there is no basis in Islam.

2-     It promotes love and infatuation.

3-     It calls for hearts to be preoccupied with foolish matters that are contrary to the way of the righteous salaf (may Allaah be pleased with them). 

It is not permissible on this day to do any of the things that are characteristic of this festival, whether that has to do with food, drinks, clothing, exchanging gifts or anything else. 

The Muslim should be proud of his religion and should not be a weak character who follows every Tom, Dick and Harry. I ask Allaah to protect the Muslims from all temptations, visible and invisible, and to protect us and guide us. 

End quote from Majmoo’ Fataawa al-Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen (16/199) 

2 – The Standing Committee was asked: Some people celebrate Valentine’s Day on the fourteenth of February every year. They exchange gifts of red roses and wear red clothes and congratulate one another. Some bakeries make red coloured sweets and draw hearts on them, and some stores advertise products that are especially for this day. What is your opinion on the following: 

1-     Celebrating this day

2-     Buying things from the stores on this day

3-     Storekeepers who are not celebrating it selling things that may be given as gifts to people who are celebrating it? 

They replied: 

The clear evidence of the Qur’aan and Sunnah – and the consensus of the early generations of this ummah – indicates that there are only two festivals in Islam: Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. Any other festivals that have to do with a person, a group, an event or anything else are innovated festivals, which it is not permissible for Muslims to observe, approve of or express joy on those occasions, or to help others to celebrate them in any way, because that is transgressing the sacred limits of Allaah, and whoever transgresses the sacred limits of Allaah has wronged himself. If the fabricated festival is also a festival of the kuffaar, then the sin is even greater, because this is imitating them and it is a kind of taking them as close friends, and Allaah has forbidden the believers to imitate them and take them as close friends in His Holy Book. And it is proven that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Whoever imitates a people is one of them.” Valentine’s Day comes under this heading because it is an idolatrous Christian festival, so it is not permissible for a Muslim who believes in Allaah and the Last Day to observe it or approve of it or congratulate people on it. Rather he has to ignore it and avoid it, in obedience to Allaah and His Messenger, and so as to keep away from the causes that incur the wrath and punishment of Allaah. It is also haraam for the Muslim to help people to celebrate this or any other haraam festival by supplying any kind of food or drink, or buying or selling or manufacturing or giving or advertising etc., because all of that is cooperating in sin and transgression and is disobedience towards Allaah and His Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him). Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning): 

“Help you one another in Al‑Birr and At‑Taqwa (virtue, righteousness and piety); but do not help one another in sin and transgression. And fear Allaah. Verily, Allaah is Severe in punishment”

[al-Maa’idah 5:2] 

The Muslim must adhere to the Book of Allaah and the Sunnah in all his affairs, especially at times of fitnah when evil is widespread. He should be smart and avoid falling into the misguidance of those who have earned Allaah’s anger and who have gone astray, and the evildoers who have no fear of Allaah and who do not have any pride in being Muslims. The Muslim must turn to Allaah and seek His guidance and remain steadfast in following it, for there is no Guide except Allaah and no one can make a person steadfast but Him. And Allaah is the source of strength. May Allaah send blessings and peace upon our Prophet Muhammad and his family and companions. End quote. 

3 – Shaykh Ibn Jibreen (may Allaah preserve him) was asked: 

Among our young men and women it has become common to celebrate Valentine’s Day, which is named after a saint who is venerated by the Christians, who celebrate it every year on February 14, when they exchange gifts and red roses, and they wear red clothes. What is the ruling on celebrating this day and exchanging gifts? 

He replied: 

Firstly: it is not permissible to celebrate these innovated festivals, because it is an innovation for which there is no basis in Islam. It comes under the heading of the hadeeth of ‘Aa’ishah (may Allaah be pleased with her), according to which the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Whoever introduces anything into this matter of ours that is not part of it will have it rejected.” 

Secondly: it involves imitating the kuffaar and copying them by venerating that which they venerate and respecting their festivals and rituals, and imitating them in something that is part of their religion. In the hadeeth it says: “Whoever imitates a people is one of them.” 

Thirdly: it results in evils and haraam things such as wasting time, singing, music, extravagance, unveiling, wanton display, men mixing with women, women appearing before men other than their mahrams, and other haraam things, or things that are a means that leads to immorality. That cannot be excused by the claim that this is a kind of entertainment and fun. The one who is sincere towards himself should keep away from sin and the means that lead to it. 

And he said: 

Based on this, it is not permissible to sell these gifts and roses, if it is known that the purchaser celebrates these festivals or will give these things as gifts on those days, so that the seller will not be a partner of the one who does those innovations. And Allaah knows best. End quote. 

And Allaah knows best.

 Umar Yusif

umyusif@mtn.com.gh

 

The Muslim Attitude Towards Valentine Day

The Muslim’s attitude towards this holiday should be clear: 

1- He should not celebrate it, or join others in their celebrations of it, or attend their celebrations because it is forbidden to celebrate the festivals of non-Muslims. 

Ath-Thahabi   said: “If the Christians have a festival and the Jews have a festival, which is peculiar to them, then the Muslim should not join them in that, just as he does not join them in their religion or their direction of prayer.”

This is so because the basic principles of the pious predecessors [As-Salaf As-Saalih] was Al-walaa’ wal-baraa’ (loyalty and friendship vs. disavowal and enmity), therefore, it is obligatory for every Muslim to follow this principle. He should love the Muslims and should not follow the non-Muslims; rather, he must be different from them. By doing so, he achieves immeasurable benefits, just as imitating them causes greater harm. 
In addition to this, when the Muslims imitate non-Muslims, this makes the latter happy and fills their hearts with joy. If any Muslim girl celebrates this holiday because she sees Margaret or Hilary or whoever does so, then this undoubtedly reflects the fact that she is imitating them and approves of their behavior. But Allaah Says (what means): “O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allaah guides not the wrongdoing people.” [Quran 5:51] “Guide us to the Straight Way, The way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace, not (the way) of those who earned Your Anger, nor of those who went astray” [ Quran 1:6-7], to ask Allaah for guidance to the Straight Path of the believers and to keep him away from the path of those who have earned His anger and of those who went astray, and then deliberately follows their path and imitates them?  Among the things that have been seen among the Muslims on this holiday: 

 

One of the bad effects of imitating them is that this increases their number, as this makes it look as if they have more supporters and followers. How can it be appropriate for a Muslim who recites in every Rak’ah (prayer unit) Allaah’s words (which mean): 

Statistics indicate that Valentine’s Day is second only to Christmas in popularity. So it is clear that the Feast of Love is one of the festivals of non-Muslims and that it is second only to the festival of Christmas. So it is not permissible for Muslims to participate in such celebrations, because we are commanded to differ from them in their religion, customs and other things that exclusively belong to them, as is stated in the Quran, Sunnah (Prophet’s tradition) and scholarly consensus. 

2- He should not help the non-Muslims in their celebrations because it is one of the rituals of disbelief. Helping them and approving of what they do is helping them to manifest disbelief and make it prevail, and approving of it. The Islamic religion does not allow a Muslim to approve of disbelief or help others to manifest it and make it prevail. 

Hence, Ibn Taymiyyah   said: “It is not permissible for the Muslims to imitate them in anything that is specifically part of their festivals, whether it is food, clothing, bathing, lighting fires, or changing a custom of daily life or worship.” 

3- He should not help any Muslims who celebrate it. Rather, it is obligatory to denounce them, because for the Muslims to celebrate the festivals of non-Muslims is an evil action which must be condemned. Ibn Taymiyah   said: “Just as we should not imitate them in their festivals, we should not help a Muslim to do that as well; rather, he should be told not to do that.” 

Based on this, it is not permissible for Muslim businessmen to deal in gifts for Valentine’s Day, whether they are particular kinds of clothes, red roses, or whatever. Similarly, it is not permissible for the one who is given a gift on this occasion to accept it, because by accepting it, he is showing approval of this holiday. 

One Daa’iyah (caller to Islam) said: we went to a flower shop in one of the Muslim countries and we were shocked to find it completely prepared for this occasion, with red carpets at the entrance, red placards and red decorations. We were met by one of the people who worked there, and we asked him why they had done so much to decorate the place for this occasion. 

He said that these preparations had begun early, and that there had been so many orders… Then he told us that he had been amazed by that, because he was a new Muslim who had left Christianity. He had known about that before he became Muslim, so how come his customers were Muslims and not Christians? 

Other shops ran out of red roses, which were being sold at high prices. When one of the female Du’aat entered upon the female students who were gathered in the lecture hall, she was dismayed to find them all carrying something red. One had a red rose, another had a red scarf, or a red handkerchief, or a red bag, or red socks… 

a- All the female students agreeing with their friends to tie a red ribbon on the right wrist. 

b- Wearing something red (a blouse, hair clip, shoes…). This reached such an extent last year that when we entered the classroom we found most of the students wearing it, as if it was a uniform.

c- Red balloons on which are written the words “I love you”. They usually bring these out at the end of the school day, in an area far from where the teachers can see them.

d- Writing names and hearts on their hands, or just initials.

e- Red roses are widespread on this day. 

Groups of girls entered their lecture rooms on February 14, each of them wearing something red, with red heart-shaped stickers on their faces, wearing red make-up. They started to exchange red-colored gifts and kiss one another warmly. This happened in more than one university in the Muslim world, even in an Islamic university. In other words, they were celebrating Saint Valentine’s Day. 

On that day, secondary schools (high schools) were astonished by the large numbers of female students who brought red roses of the finest quality, colored their faces with red cosmetics, wore red earrings, and started to exchange gifts and warm greetings, in celebration of this day. 

Valentine’s Day has come to a number of Arab and Muslim countries, and has even reached the heartland of Islam (the Arabian Peninsula). It has reached societies which we had thought far removed from this insanity. In Riyadh, the price of roses has risen incredibly, to an extent that a single rose costs 36 riyals (10 dollars), whereas before this day it cost 5 riyals. Gift shops and card shops compete in designing cards and gifts for this occasion, and some families hang up red roses in the windows of their homes on this day.  

In some of the Muslim countries, shopping centers and hotels have organized special celebrations for Valentine’s Day. Most of the stores and business places are covered in red. One of the finest Gulf hotels was full of balloons and dolls. Following the customs of the Feast of Love and the pagan myths, one restaurant owner put on a dramatic production with “Cupid”, the idol of love in the Roman myths, nearly naked and carrying a bow and arrow. He and his cohorts were looking to select “Mr. & Mrs. Valentine” from among the people present. 

Less expensive restaurants also celebrated this day in their own way. Some stores replaced their regular plates with heart-shaped plates, used red tablecloths and linens, and put a red rose on each table for the man to present to his beloved. 

We must oppose these things by all possible means. The responsibility rests with us all. 

4- We should not accept congratulations on Valentine’s Day, because it is not a holiday or an ‘Eed for the Muslims. If the Muslim is congratulated on this occasion, he should not return the congratulation. Ibn Al-Qayyim   said: “With regard to congratulating others with the congratulations used by the non-Muslims on such occasions, it is prohibited by scholarly consensus, such as congratulating them on the occasion of their festivals or fasts, wishing them a blessed festival, etc. 

Finally, we must explain the true nature of this holiday and other festivals of the non-Muslims to those Muslims who have been deceived by them, and explain to them that it is essential for the Muslim to be distinguished by his religion and to protect his ‘Aqeedah (belief) from anything that may damage it. This should be done towards the Ummah (Muslim nation) for the sake of Allaah and in fulfillment of the command of enjoining good and forbidding evil.



 Umar Yusif

umyusif@mtn.com.gh

Who is Valentine’s Day for?

By Khaled ibn Abdul-Rahman Al-Shayi’

People naturally like occasions of happiness and pleasure, whether private or public, including eids (feasts or days of celebration). For the sake of this inclination, the Shari’a came with the legitimacy of the Fitr and Adha Eids: Two valid eids in the year, and Allah has legislated in them (reasonable) spending and the showing of happiness which people need, in addition to a weekly eid which is Friday. And this is part of the mercy of Allah upon this nation of Mohammad (peace be upon him). 
If we look at the celebrations that other nations have, we will find that they have quite a number of them: one for each national occasion and season, Mother’s Day, Labor Day, a day for agriculture and so on, to the extent that there is barely a month without a specific eid.  All this is from their innovation.

Allah the Exalted has said (interpretation of the meaning) 
{But the monasticism which they invented for themselves We did not prescribe for them} (Al-Hadid 57:27) and for this reason the dates of the occasions have changed through the years according to political and social desires, and they are accompanied with more rituals, habits and types of amusement than can be listed, according to the details in specialized books.

Among the strange eids in the world today are those of the pagans and the People of the Book (Jews and Christians), connected to their gods, rabbis and monks, such as the days of St. Michael, St. Andrew, St. Valentine, etc.  These eids are accompanied with several acts including decorating homes, lighting candles, going to the church, buying certain types of candy, specific songs and so on.

After that it has become the habit of non-Muslim nations to celebrate birthdays in which people invite their friends, prepare special food, light candles according to the age of the person etc.. and some Muslims have imitated them in this innovation! 
After this introduction to the eids of the nations, it is worth mentioning that a Muslim should be confident that the most complete guidance and the best legislation is that which the Seal of the Prophets and Messengers (peace be upon him) came with.

Allah the Exalted has said (interpretation of the meaning) 
{This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed my favor upon you and have chosen for you Islam as your religion} (Al-Maida 5:3).

All the eids that the other nations have are innovation and misguidance, in addition to their disbelief in Allah. Allah the Exalted has said (interpretation of the meaning) 
{If anyone desires a religion other than Islam never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter he will be in the ranks of those who have lost (all spiritual good) } (Al-Imran 3:85)

Due to the importance of this subject and the attention it should be given – I mean what has come to Muslims from the eids of disbelievers and the occasions they relate to their religion – Islam has given the matter eloquent and specific care.  Allah has described His believing servants as avoiding disbelievers in their eids: {Those who witness no falsehood} (Al-Furqan 25:72). Falsehood in this verse refers to the eids of the disbelievers.  Allah has legislated for His believing servants eids that suffice them from copying those of others: 
Abu Dawood, Nasa’i and others have authentically reported that Anas (may Allah be pleased with him) said: the Prophet (peace be upon him) came to Madinah at a time in which  people had two days in which they played.  He told them: “Allah has replaced these two with what is better: the days of Fitr and Adha.” 
Hafiz Ibn Hajjar (may Allah have mercy on him) said: “From this it is deduced that it is disliked to be happy during the pagans’ eids and to imitate them.” 
In what follows we will consider an eid that some Muslims have imitated and taken from the disbelievers, namely Valentine’s Day, which Christians have specified as the 14th of February, according to a certain creed that they have and which we will not go into the details of.

Normally we would not have considered this eid nor given it any attention, as it is one of the tens of eids that they have, but because some Muslims and Muslimahs have become affected by this, it has become necessary to inform our brothers and sisters who attempt to participate in this occasion with its specific ‘rituals’ and do not know that Valentine’s Day is deeply rooted in the Christian creed.  The latter – i.e., the Christians – differ on whether this is something they inherited or something inherited from the Romans, who had gods according to their desires: they appointed gods for love as they do with other gods for light, darkness, crops, rain, seas, rivers, and so on.

Some of the things observed by disbelievers during Valentine’s Day include their clothes, gifts, greeting cards, red roses (they use red as a symbol for a certain obscene behavior).  They also celebrate by writing phrases of love and passion on the cards that are exchanged between young men and women, purchasing red teddy bears with hearts and words of love on them which are sold at high prices as presents that symbolize love!

One of the things that has increased the spreading of these issues in some Muslim countries is what many forms of media (whether read or viewed) – and particularly satellite channels – do by advertising this behavior using various methods, to the extent that the matter is no longer evident to simple people who do not have sufficient educational sense to protect them from these twisted behaviors, and particularly male and female students in public and higher education.

According to what has been presented, we would like to confront our brothers and sisters – fellow Muslims – who participate in any of the types of celebrations mentioned, and we say: 
Today those of you who celebrate Valentine’s Day and similar do this for something within yourselves. But I think that with your instinct of the oneness of Allah, that if you knew the religious background of this celebration and what it bears of symbols of innovation, paganism, and demonstrating that there are other gods than Allah – may Allah be exalted from that – you would realize how grave your mistake is and the awfulness of the direction you have taken and how you have been effected.

Scholars have said that a Muslim should not accept any gift or food prepared for the sake of the disbelievers’ eids.  For this reason, it is incumbent upon fathers and mothers to pay attention of this in their children, and particularly if they see their daughters wearing red blouses, jackets or the like specifically on that day.  Likewise, if children ask them to buy roses or greeting cards that are specific for that day, they should tell them the truth about this issue in a religious, educational and convincing manner.

We also greatly admonish those Muslims who sell symbols of disbelievers’ celebrations, whether by importing or producing them.  For example, those who sell and provide flowers specifically on that day, and owners of stores that sell toys and wrap gifts.  These people are helping in the celebration of disbelievers’ eids, and undoubtedly they are cooperating in vice and aggression and participating in the spreading of the beliefs of the disbelievers.  However, may Allah be praised, they have a lot of other things to sell that are not used in the celebration of the disbelievers’ eids.

Another thing we should mention here is that Muslims who carry the knowledge or work for the media should play their role in protecting Islamic thoughts from their media counterparts who contempt Islam and Muslims.

We would like to conclude our topic with the fatwa of the great scholar Sh. Mohammad ibn Saleh Al-Othaymeen (may Allah have mercy upon him).  He was asked about celebrating and participating in Valentine’s Day.  His answer was: 
“Celebrating Valentine’s Day is not permitted because: 
1. it is an innovated eid that has no basis in shari’a 
2. it invites people to love and passion 
3. it invites people’s hearts to be busy with these insignificant issues that are against the path of the previous righteous people, may Allah be pleased with them.

So it is forbidden to perform any ‘eid rituals’ on this day – whether food, drinks, clothes, gifts, etc. 
A Muslim should be proud of his/her religion, and should not by an imitator who follows every caller. 
I ask Allah to protect Muslims from all temptations, both visible or hidden.” [End of the shaikh’s fatwa] 
Thus it is evident “who Valentine’s Day is for”, as this day is not of the practices of Islam nor its guidance, but rather the result of the social and educational pitfalls of the disbelievers.  Any Muslim who participates in celebrating this day does so because of whims within him/herself and because of personal defeat, inadequate educational sense, and weakness of Islamic protection in those whose own selves deceived them into imitating disbelievers and mimicking them in their unworthiness and misguidance. 

May peace be upon our prophet Mohammad and his family and companions. 
 

 

Sheikh Abdul Kadir Mbogo Interview with the Torch Newspaper

sheikh Mbogo

Sheikh Abdul-Qadr Mbogo

Over time, Muslim leadership has been a centre of controversy for all the wrong reasons in Ugandan media. The Torch now embarks on striping the facts bare, bringing you personalities that have seen it all.

Sheikh Abdul Kadir Mbogo, the acting Kadhi of Kampala District Muslim Supreme has served the Muslim community since the days of Prince Nuhu Mbogo. Hamza Kyeyune, caught up with Sheikh Abdul-Qadr Mbogo at his home

Hamza: Give me an insight into the real life of Sheikh Mbogo.
Sheikh Mbogo: I was born on March 13th-1930, to the late Muslim Kyeswa in Ntinda. I spent my early years with my paternal aunt in Naguru, where I used to walk from, everyday to Wandegeya to attend Qur’an classes. Hajj Musa Kasule had constructed a small mosque in Wandegeya and he paid Shillings 12 as tuition for all Muslim students interested in studying the Qur’an.

It was very difficult then getting all that 12shs, Hajj Kasule was a very generous man and many young Muslims like sheikh Umar Dumba and many others benefited from his support. In 1945, I got sponsorship from Arabs to go to Yemen for further studies.

Hamza: when did you start serving Islam?
Sheikh Mbogo: when I returned from Yemen in 1951, I was appointed by Sheikh Ssekimwanyi as the Imam of Abdul-Aziiz Bulwadda.

Hamza: who is Abdul-Aziz Bulwadda?
Sheikh Mbogo: When King Mwanga ordered the burning of what is now referred to as Uganda Martyrs, all people who refused to renounce foreign religions including Muslims were burnt. Abdul-Aziiz Bulwadda was among those to be burnt. Allah is greater! As he was about to be burnt one of his friends from the palace came and fooled Mukajanga
(the executioner) that Abdul Aziiz was urgently needed by the Kabaka because he had committed some other crimes in the palace. That is how he survived with about three other Muslims.

Hamza: were there Muslim wrangles during that time?
Sheikh Mbogo: Yes, only that the magnitude wasn’t so severe. Dis-unity in Uganda dates as far back in 1921 after the death of Prince Nuhu Mbogo. During the reign of Mbogo, all Muslims in Uganda, Tanzania performed Juma and Zhuhur (Juma ne Zukuuli). In 1920, Sheikh Ssekimwanyi performed pilgrimage to Mecca and learnt that after
performing Juma, one does not perform Zhuhur. So, in 1921 after the death of Mbogo, Ssekimwanyi started popularizing the idea that Juma is performed alone, but Mbogo’s followers rejected his claim saying he was looking for ways of becoming the leader of Muslims. Only few people like Salim Makeera of Bwala, Abdallah Kuwala of Butambala and a few others accepted Ssekimwanyi’s doctrine.

That marked the beginning of disunity in Islam here in Uganda, with Ssekimwanyi leading the pro-Juma sect, and Sheikh Swaib Ssemakula leading the pro Juma ne Zukuuli sect. Ayub Nsibirwa who was Kabaka Daudi’s artisan who had secured the whole of Bukoto land from Daudi Chwa gave Ssekimwanyi all the land he needed to construct a Mosque for
Juma sect to avoid clashing with Kibuli. Throughout that time, all the Muslims that went to Mecca went for two reasons; One to perform hajj and secondly, to see for them selves if it was true that in Mecca they only pray Juma as claimed by Ssekimwanyi. Those that came back from hajj joined Ssekimwanyi because; in Mecca they only performed Juma.

Part 2

This is the second part of our interview with Sheikh Abdul Qadir Mbogo, the acting Kadhi of Kampala Muslim District Supreme Council on Muslim Wrangles that were sparked off by doctrinal differences.  Sheikh Mbogo was there and saw it all, he relives the experince.

HAMZA: Were there any attempts to reconcile the Juma and Zhuri sect under Sheikh Swaib Ssemakula and the Juma sect led by Sheikh Ssekimwanyi?

SHEIKH MBOGO: The efforts were not successful. A new movement called National Association For the Advancement of Muslims [NAAM] started with a motto “abasiraamu tubeere bumu” Muslims lets unite.

During this time, a sizeable number of young Muslims had graduated from Azhar  in Egypt like Sheikh Abdu Obeid Kamulegeya and others from other Arab countries. So as young educated Muslims, we decided to form NAAM purposely to unite Muslims in Uganda. Hajj Shaban Nkuutu who was the minister for Works and also UPC chairman for Busoga region then, gave NAAM the momentum it required to prosper. The then Minister of Information who was also Obote’s brother Hajj Akbar Adoko Nechon became the leader of NAAM with Kamulegeya as his deputy. Obote’s regime had 6 muslim ministers including Hajj Kirunda Kiveijinja, Hajj Moses Ali and others, that also supported NAAM.  

Hamza: Were there other factions during this time?

Mbogo: Like I told you previously, the Muslim Community [Kibuli Faction] under Prince Badru Kakungulu enjoyed an enormous following country wide. This constantly placed NAAM and Muslim Community at loggerheads. This tense situation in some parts of the country ended in violence sometimes causing deaths

Hamza: This brings me to a tale I have always heard about the Kajara bloodshed. Have you heard about it?

Mbogo: Hmmmm young man, heard about it?  Was there when it happened, it is a sad incident! Kajara`was a controversial area with a sizeable number of Muslims paying allegiance to Muslim Community under prince Badru Kakungulu, while another group supported NAAM. So, the pro NAAM Muslims invited us to go and celebrate mauled (birth of the Prophet Muhammad] with them. The group also asked the Mufti enthrone their Imam from NAAM as the official Imam of the area.

 But on our way to Kajara, we were informed that a rival group opposed to NAAM was ready to confront whoever would dare impose on them an Imam. Organizers of the event decided to host the Mauled a few meters from the Mosque.

We were told that all the people dressed in new Kanzus [Islamic tunic] belonged to the faction that was prepared for a show down should an imam from the NAAM group be imposed on them. When we arrived we saw a number of people guarding the mosque. We were told that each person we see at the mosque has two  tins of stones with strict instructions not to give way to NAAM invaders, “if it means dying, use your stones and when they are finished, you must be killed from the very spot where we have placed you, agreed? And all those guarding the mosque agreed not to surrender or unless they are killed. I later learnt that the commander of this group was the father of Imam Iddi Kasozi, the chairman of Uganda Muslim Youths Assembly.

Hamza: Is he still alive?

Mbogo: No, he was the first to be killed in the fracas.

Hamza: NAAM officials as leaders didn’t care that the situation was likely to turn violent? Who owned the mosque by the way? Was it constructed by NAAM?

Mbogo: The mosque was not constructed by NAAM, it was a community mosque co-owned by both NAAM supporters and Muslim Community supporters. In fact, some of us suggested to the Mufti Sheik Ssemakula that instead of fighting with fellow Muslims, we should postpone inducting the NAAM Imam after mauled ceremonies, but others objected to that idea and insisted we should induct our Imam.

Hamza: So, what happened there after?

Mbogo: So, after the mawuledi, the Mufti Sheikh Semakula selected people to go and represent him to install the NAAM Imam. At this point, the battle lines had been officially drawn. Sheikh Obeid Kamulegeya led the attacking brigade and the father of Imam Iddi Kasozi led the defending brigade of the mosque.

Hamza: So, the defending brigade had heaps of stones with them, how were the NAAM officials going to defend them selves?

Mbogo: Hamza, I told you earlier the leader of NAAM was Obote’s brother and a minister. Besides that, NAAM had six high profile ministers in government. So we had very well armed security personnel. So, when the stones brigade saw NAAM officials advancing towards the mosque, their commander threw a big stone that hit one escort forcing him to drop his gun. When the escort picked up his gun, he started shooting at those guarding the mosque indiscriminately.  So the war had now officially started, stones rained from left, right and centre, while gun shots were sounding all over.  It was now time to save our lives, the Mufti Sheikh Swaib Ssemakula, Kamulegeya and I drove off in the middle of the war at a breakneck speed and our first destination was Mbarara. I don’t know how others like Sheikh Kaduyu, Sheikh Hatwib Mukulu Wakika and Abasi Balinda escaped death.

Hamza: Where did you go in Mbarara?

Mbogo: In Mbarara, we went to Hajj Tegawa’s home and waited for news from Kajara. We first got the news from Hajj Abasi Kazibwe. He informed us that a number of Muslims had died, in Kajara during the clash. Other sources reported seeing four dead bodies while others said six. Because there were no mobile phones then we would not establish the exact figures immediately.  

Hamza: How did this absurd situation end?

Mbogo: We travelled back to Kampala but there was a lot of tension between NAAM and Muslim Community.  It ended with the arrest of Prince Badru Kakungulu.

Hamza: How was that possible? Did he attend Kajara ceremonies?

Mbogo: No, but  after the deaths in Kajara, NAAM officials advised Obote that its Prince Badru Kakungulu restraining Muslims from supporting his government and advised him to deal with Kakungulu by all means. So one afternoon, while Kakungulu was attending a ceremony in Kawempe, he was picked up together with six other people including Abu Mayanja, Sheikh Ali Kulumba and Hajj Nasibu by state operatives. This worsened the relationship between Obote and Baganda because he had already exiled King Muteesa.

Part 3 

 

Immediately after overthrowing Obote, late Idd Amin started efforts to unite the sharply divided Muslim community. Sheikh Abdul Qadir, Mbogo, the Kadhi of Kampala attended the Kabale unification conference. Sheikh Mbogo spoke to our reporter Hamza Kyeyune was took place in Kabale.
HAMZA: Which Muslim leaders took part in the Kabale unification congress that was initiated by Iddi Amin?

Sheikh Mbogo: All leaders of Muslim factions in Uganda however small they were attended. Uganda Muslim Community led by Prince Badru Kakungulu, African Muslim Community-Bukoto-Nateete led by Sheikh Zaidi Mugenyi’Asooka, NAAM under Sheikh Obeid Kamulegeya, Shia and Agakhan sects amongst others were all represented.

HAMZA: Kabale was a very remote place compared to Kampala, what led Amin to choose such a place?

Sheikh Mbogo: He said he chose Kabale because it was safe from rumormongers in Kampala. He told us that Muslim unity was his priority as a president and swore not to let us return back to our homes until we forge a way forward. He asked us to adopt a name embracing all Muslim factions in Uganda and also suggest a title for the leader of Muslims in Uganda.

HAMZA: Did Amin chair the conference himself?
Sheikh Mbogo: No, he only gave opening remarks and appointed Nkambo Mugerwa, a celebrated non Muslim Kampala lawyer to chair the conference. He reasoned that Mugerwa was not a Muslim he was not an interested party and would therefore play a neutral role.

So many names were proposed for the association but well agreed with the suggestion of Hassan Ssebuuza, to call our organization Uganda Muslim Supreme Council[UMSC]. We also adopted
the title of Mufti for the head of the newly founded UMSC. Previously the Muslim head was known as chief Kadhi. Immediately, we held elections for the Mufti.
HAMZA: Was the contest as stiff as it is today, and who were the main contenders in the conference.

Sheikh Mbogo:  It was a hot election. The competition was between the National Association for the Advancement of Muslims [NAAM] who fielded Sheikh Abdrazaak Matovu, while Uganda Muslim Congress brought Sheikh Ali Kulumba.

At the close of the poll, Sheikh Abdurazaak Matovu was elected Mufti, and Kulumba was appointed his deputy.

Hajj Badru Kakungulu was elected the first Chairman of UMSC, while Hajj Ali Balunywa became his deputy. Officials of districts were elected later after returning to their respective districts.

HAMZA: Did the Kabale conference resolve the problem of Muslim leadership wrangles in Uganda?

Sheikh Mbogo: Temporarily because, after the formation of UMSC, Amin promised to bring the custodian of the two holy mosques of Mecca and Madina, king Faisal Ibn Abdul-Aziiz then.  While in Uganda, King Faisal increased scholarships for Muslims, promised salaries for Medina graduates, and on his way back, he performed Swalat Juma at old Kampala.

It was still bushy as it had just been allocated to Muslims by Amin. The prayer was led by Sheikh Kulumba and it started at Midday. After the prayer, King Faisal promised to contact Kuwait and Jordan to construct a grand mosque as headquarters for Ugandan Muslims. 

Amin ordered the opening up of a UMSC mosque construction account in Jeddah with Aziiz Kasujja (then working with Libyan Bank) and Moses Ali, the then Finance Minister as signatories.

Kasujja and Kamulegeya contracted Concorp, to construct the grand mosque. A lot of money was solicited on mawuledi country wide for the construction of the mosque, but the construction stalled after sometime.

Amin summoned Aziizi Kasujja, Obeid Kamulegeya and others to explain why the construction
had stalled, when they failed to explain, he arrested them and jailed them. The mufti also resigned later.

Hamza; Why did Abdurazaak resign?

Sheikh Mbogo: At that time, everyone who went to Mecca was given travelers cheque. Unfortunately on several occasions, people who had cleared their fare for Hajj would find their names deleted and replaced by more influential people.

People complained and the matters reached the president. Amin asked for an explanation from
the Mufti in vain. As a result he forced the Mufti to resign. Amin appointed Amis Safi and Col. Emilio Mondo to manage the finance affairs of the UMSC. This was in the evening before he was toppled by UNLF.
HAMZA: So, how did UMSC consolidate its power after Amin?

Sheikh Mbogo: Paul Muwanga a personal friend of Prince Badru Kakungulu and also the Min. of Internal Affairs in the UNLF government asked Kakungulu to suggest a name of a Muslim head.

He proposed Qassim Mulumba, who was appointed interim Mufti for a period of six months. It was expected that after that time Muslims would be in position to elect a new leadership.

However, Mulumba exceeded the mandate given to him and as a result a parallel leadership under Sheikh Obeid Kamulegeya was installed.

HAMZA: For how long did this situation continue?

Sheikh Mbogo: Not long, Prince Badru Kakungulu succeeded in mediating
between the two parallel factions and they agreed to work together.

HAMZA: How did they resolve it?

Sheikh Mbogo: Kamulegeya agreed to give up his claim to Mufti-ship and became a deputy to Mulumba. But because of intense pressure from Kamulegeya and his clique, Mulumba was forced to resign, and Kamulegeya fully occupied the seat of Muftiship at Agakhan mosque, Old Kampala.

HAMZA: When Mulumba resigned, did he approve of Kamulegeya Muftiship?

Sheikh Mbogo: No, Mulumba formed a parallel faction and established his base along Rubaga road where he continued to challenge the leadership of Kamulegeya as the mufti at Old Kampala.

Source: The Torch Newspaper

www.thetorchnewsug.com

ISLAMIC CONTRIBUTION TO HUMAN CIVILIZATION

In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, The Most Merciful

           Assalamo Alykum Wa Rehmatullahe wa Barakaatuh
“Let there arise out of you a group of peopleinviting to all that is good (Islam), Enjoining Al-Ma‘roof (i.e. Islamic Monotheism and all that Islam orders one to do) and Forbidding Al-Munkar (polytheism and disbelief and all that Islam has forbidden).And it is they who are the successful” [Aal ‘Imraan 3:1
—————————————————————————————-
ISLAM’S CONTRIBUTION TO HUMAN CIVILIZATION:
       SCIENCE AND CULTURE
We all know every religion has a civilization. Every civilization has its ups and downs. A civilization’s best “up” is what scholars often call its golden age. Indeed, every civilization has its golden age.
But it may have several golden ages; a golden age in certain domains of human life in one period of its history, another golden age in other domains, but in a different period. In the case of Islam, its golden age in science, technology and intellectual culture spanned about five centuries, from the ninth until the fourteenth centuries.
This is also the period of Islam’s dominance in world science and technology. During this period, Muslims made many important scientific discoveries and technological innovations, contributions to scientific culture, and advancements in intellectual culture in general. These Muslim achievements greatly influenced the European Renaissance in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the birth of modern science in the 17th century.
To speak about Islam’s gifts to humanity in just half an hour, even confined to science and technology alone, is to do a great injustice to the subject. However, given the fact that the subject is not that well known to many people today, especially in the West, even a glimpse of Islam’s major scientific contributions is welcome.

Moreover, given our current global situation when the worldwide focus is on Islam and the West, the subject of my talk tonight may remind us of things that can contribute to a better appreciation of the civilizational significance of Islam to the West in the past and to a healthier climate for a dialogue of civilizations in our contemporary world.
Bertrand Russell, the famous British philosopher, has rightly claimed, “it was the Arabs who introduced the empirical method” in the study of nature and cultivated it widely when they were leaders of the civilized world. The Greeks, adds Russell, might have been brilliant philosophers, but they were not interested in empirical investigations. In jest, Russell points to Aristotle, who claimed that men have more teeth than women. But that claim was never verified empirically. With two wives, he could have easily counted their teeth and counterchecked with his own. But he was not empirically minded. The scientific method, as it has been developed primarily at the hands of the West, was indeed invented by Muslims and first practiced by them on a large scale.
Muslim scientists then were not only Arabs, but also people of other racial and ethnic groups such as Persians, Indians and even Chinese. Many famous Muslim scientists who were also known and influential in the Latin West, had come from regions in Central and South Asia neighboring Afghanistan, where the focus of the West and indeed the
whole world is now centered. The tenth-century Ibn Sina, or Avicenna as he was known in the West, hailed from Uzbekistan which for centuries was noted for its world-leading centers of intellectual and scientific activity, such as Bukhara and Samarkand.
Ibn Sina’s contemporary, al-Biruni, regarded by many Western authorities as the greatest Muslim scientist of all time, was also born in today’s Uzbekistan. But he spent most of his life in the Indian subcontinent. He knew Afghanistan well. One of his most significant empirical studies was a geological survey of the Ganges Basin in India. This geological study  was to reward him with a theory of the continental shift, centuries before Western scientists became interested in the idea.

We can go on and on mentioning the names of past  Muslim scientists who were not Arabs. But the West has called them “Arabs” apparently because they had written in Arabic which was, by the way, the international scientific language of the day. Even today, many people in the West identify Islam with the Arabs and the Middle East. True, Islam originated with the Arabs, but gradually it became a global religion and
a global religious community embracing diverse ethnic and cultural groups from as far west as Spain and as far east as Indonesia and China.
Of course the majority of scientists in the western lands of Islam were Arabs, and they were better known in the West. The important point to take note is this. Muslim scientists in both the east and the west had cultivated a novel way of studying the physical and the natural world, namely the scientific method. This method of theirs was modern. It embraced the ideas of quantitative and empirical methods, mathematical methods, and rational and logical modes of enquiry as these are understood today. Thanks to their discovery and cultivation of this method, Muslim scientists were able to make great progress.
Many of their works became well known and influential in the West through their Latin translations. Many ideas advanced in these works were to have a lasting influence on western thought and culture, although in the course of time their Islamic origin became forgotten. When decades ago the Italian Orientalist, Assendro Baussani, tried to hammer home the point that “Islam is an integral part of western intellectual culture,” he was one of the few western voices aware of the historical role of Islam in western civilization.
Very few people in the West today know that Ibn Sina’s best medical work, Canon of Medicine, was taught for centuries in Western universities and was one of the most frequently printed scientific texts in the Renaissance. Likewise, few realize that when the West in the Age of Scholasticism and in the Renaissance wanted to rediscover Plato and Aristotle and the Greek roots of civilization, it could not do so by going back directly to the original Greek sources. It had to depend not only on Muslim translations of the Greek works, but also on Muslim interpreters.
For example, when the famous thirteenth-century theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas wanted to create a new rational theology, he encountered an Arabic Aristotle that had been Islamized. Aquinas saw that Aristotle had found a new home in Islam, so he wanted to seek one in Christianity. Aristotle had come to be accepted as a common heritage of Islam and the West. He is the father of western science, but he is also a founder of Islamic science.
Given the fact that today there are people inclined to believe in an imminent clash of civilizations and the incompatibility between Islam and the West, it is worth reminding ourselves that the two civilizations do share something precious in common, at least in their intellectual heritage. The West takes great pride in modern science as one of the greatest achievements of its intellect. This western achievement is something no one can deny or belittle. But it won’t be wrong for someone to make the following claim: there would not have been modern science without the Renaissance — and without Islamic science and philosophy, there would have been no Renaissance!

The success of the future rests on the success of the present, and the success of the present on the success of the past. Take for example one of the twentieth-century’s greatest scientific and technological feats; the epic journey to the moon and back to earth! That success is of course a triumph of American space science. But scientists of other nations and of earlier times have contributed in one form or another to its development. They have helped to lay the foundation of modern space science.

Again, it is little known that the immediate predecessor of modern space science is medieval Islamic astronomy. From the twelfth century, Muslim astronomers began to criticize the Ptolemaic planetary system. That was a great step forward in the history of astronomy. Islam was noted for its astronomical observatories, which have also developed into modern research canters of planetary science. Indeed, they must be regarded as scientific research institutions in the modern sense, for group research
was emphasized, and theoretical investigations went hand in hand with observations.
The most developed and perhaps the most successful of institutions of this type, scientifically speaking, was the observatory at Maragha in Azerbaijan. Many things can be said about the observatory in support of the contention that Islamic scientific culture had reached a well-developed stage. The observatory had as its director a leading scientist of the day, by the name of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. It engaged in both teaching and research. Although the main line of research there was planetary science, an interdisciplinary approach was emphasized. The scientists working there were of different religious backgrounds and ethnicity, including Chinese. It was the Cape Kennedy of its day. Research findings were published and among the fruits of the Maragha research was a new planetary theory proposed by al-Tusi.
The last achievement of Islamic planetary astronomy in medieval times was a lunar model developed by Ibn al-Shatir from Damascus, based on al-Tusi’s theory. Some modern scholars have claimed that Copernicus was acquainted with this development in Islamic space science. In the words of one scholar, “all that is astronomically new in Copernicus can be found essentially in the school of al-Tusi and his students.” If that is so, then Copernicus may be regarded as the link between Islamic planetary science and its modern Western successor. If we are looking for scientists of the past who have contributed to the development of human thought on planetary science, without which man’s journey to the moon would have unthinkable, then the names of the Maragha scientists stand to be counted.
In this connection, I would like to stress on the important contribution Islam has made in the institutionalization of science. With state support and patronage by royalty and political rulers, science education and research become institutionalized. Consequently, scientific culture became more entrenched in society. No one can dispute the assertion that institutionalization constitutes a major phase in the development and progress of science. In initiating this particular phase of scientific progress, Islam has made another lasting contribution to world civilization. Research-based astronomical observatories and teaching hospitals were Islam’s best-known creations of scientific institutions, paving the way for a more intensified institutionalization of science at
the hands of the modern West. The organization and practices of Muslim hospitals greatly influenced the development of their Western counterparts. Clinical practice initiated by Muhammad Zakaria al-Raziearly in the tenth century became an integral component of Islamic medical practice for centuries before it was widely adopted in the West.

There is another important institution that owes its origin to Islam. This is the university as we know it today. Islam founded the oldest university in the world, the al-Azhar University in Cairo. The first Western universities were modeled after Muslim universities. Many features of Muslim universities came to be adopted by the West, whether these pertain to the organization of curricula or granting of degrees. Even the tradition of specialized chairs (professorships) owes its origin to Islam.  The famous eleventh/twelfth century al-Ghazzali was the first occupant of the Chair of Shafi’ite Law at the leading Nizamiyyah University in Baghdad, which at that time was the archrival of al-Azhar. The influence of Islam on the West in the domain of educational culture was indeed immense. However, again here as in many other domains, this is hardly known to contemporary westerners.
You may have noticed that in my lecture I did not dwell on scientific discoveries made by Muslims in the various branches of science such as mathematics, biology, geography, chemistry, physics and medicine. Muslim discoveries were indeed many and were of importance to the rise of modern science. Rather, I have chosen to deal with the practice of science itself, particularly with those aspects of it that Islam had introduced. Scientific methods, institutions, and the like are things that are part and parcel of contemporary scientific culture and that we all can see. Similarly, we can appreciate better Islam’s lasting contribution to world culture by talking about its historical role in the foundation of the university. In conclusion, it is my hope that this
glimpse of Islam’s contribution to science and culture will lead to a sincere desire on the part of many people to know more about the past civilizational relationship between Islam and the West. This is with the view of advancing the cause of dialogue of cultures. Thank you and God bless you.
——————————————————————————————————-
(Writer, Prof. Osman Bakar holds the Malaysia Chair of Islam in Southeast Asia, Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. This is the text of Prof. Baker’s speech at the CIC’s annual Ottawa dinner, October 15, 2001.)
 _.___  Compiled, edited and adapted by Khalid Latif, e-tabligue>

Islam in Lango subregion

Asalaam alaikum warahumatullah

Brothers and sisters in Islam, I pray you are doing well.

 

Thank you for your effort as you strives to make the word of Allah at the peak and at the same time kicking off the Satan from the pitch.

Daawa caravan that went to Northern Uganda was so success full and Alihamudulillah a lot was achieved. We pray that Allah Accept.

We thank all your contribution towards this noble work may Allah reward you.

We take our sincere thanks to the IUIU-KC for fully facilitating this program from transportation, accommodation, feeding among others.

We appreciate also Torch news paper members of this forum for the 2-bycicles donated to people of the North to help in Daawa activities.

Also our sincere thanks may go to IUIU-KC students who donated a lot of clothes to these people who are in much need. May Allah reword them abundantly.

 

ISLAM IN LANGO SUB REGION NORTHERN UGANDA

Lango Sub region is found in northern Uganda. This is one of the regions with small number of Muslims. There figures can not make up to 6% when we compare to other religions in that area.

 

MOSQUES

Mosques are few in north and those few are in poor condition. Most of them are covered with thatch grass and muddy walls.

 

SCHOOLS

There is no an Islamic school in Lango sub region and no Muslim secondary school in the 8 district that make up the region.

They have only 5 Muslim primary schools of which no single school is headed by a Muslim head teacher. All schools have Christians and only one school with two Muslim on the teaching staff.

Among the 5 schools IRE is no where to be taught.

This is not because Muslim teachers are not in place. They are there but they are not given priority by the commissioner of public services at the district.

The private secretary to the office of the Kadhi Mr. Acup Rashid said that he has a list of 20 Muslim teachers, but when ever they put in their application, access is denied because of them being Muslims.

 

EDUCATION

Muslim education in Lango sub region is still at low levels. Muslims owning bachelors’ degree are less than 30.

Also few sheiks exist making the backsword In both their religion and other academic arenas

 

 

COVERTS

There are many people converting to Islam and are being sent to Lira convert centre. When they reach the place they are sent back or told to wait until the administration work on the first potion of the converts then they can return if the imman still exists with them.

A new covert traveled from KITGUM for circumcision and it failed. He was told to go back next morning and he was told that they will call him later.

 

LANGO YOUTH PROGRAM

Longo Muslim Youth association is one of the groups that have come up to see that Islam is propagated in this region.

They organize different activities to bring Muslim youths together as they propagate Daawa. They lobby for scholarships for the young generation to education to level that can help them to propagate Islam in the region. Islamic University in Uganda has number of them.

But the challenge remains to those who may fail to complete ‘A’ level in order to get IUIU scholarships.

 

On Sunday 16^th January 2011, youth camp was officially closed after effectively taking 5 days of Islamic lectures to young men and women of the region.

PADEL DISTRICT
separates Lango region and Acholi sub region. Ismael Bilal is one of the new convert who attended the youth camp.

I was told that he has been in Islam for Six months. The main mosque in this district has imam who always travels from Lira district a distance of 80km to Padel.

He told me that if he fails to make up with the Juma, Ismael Bilal take the responsibility to lead Juma In the mosque with other 3 to 4 Muslims in the area. He said he is the only Muslim native who prays in that mosque.

On addition to that he is S.3 drop out after failing to pay the school fees so that he can sit S.4 exams.

Recommendation

Northern region Muslim situation is in a miserable situation. Something should be done to help the region. They are lacking schools that can educate the children.

Big land was granted to the Muslim community by Late Idd Amin but no development is taking place. Now encroachers are taking the advantage to awaken the sleeping Muslims.

The need is to,

1. Muslims who can put up schools in this region are welcome
2. Those who can support the convert centre are also welcome in this region.
3. Young children need Islamic education. So if any can award scholarship starting from Primary level, secondary level and also tertiary level will be god work done.

May Allah bless you and all your effort Amiin.

 

Yours in Islamic service

Nsobya Abdulhakim Abdullah

Daawa minister IUIU-KC

0702267228

Islam and Christmas Celebrations

Brothers and sisters,

Assalaam alaikum

I am glad to note that  this issue is generating a lively and healthy debate from which we’ll all learn Inshallah. As we await the findings of Imaam Kasozi on this, I would like to state that contemporary scholars are divided on this matter. Some of them think that congratulating christians on their festivals and extending any kind of gesture is forbidden. This group base their ruling on a number of  verses and traditions the majority of which have been kindly posted here by Bro. Abbey Semuwemba. They further argue the during his lifetime, the Prophet (PBUH) used to interact with christians and Jews and  he would visit the sick among them but that there is no report indicating that he congartuted them upon their festivals. They also base their views on those of great scholars such as Ibin Tayyimiyyah and Ibin Alqayyim.

On the other hand, a group of contemporary scholars see that congratulating the people of the book on such occassions is a form of dealing kindly “Birr” which the Almighty Allah says has no harm in 60:8 “Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth those who are just”

This group argues that a mere expression of pleasantries to the christians  with whom we may have special relations such as collegemates, colleagues at work etc. is part of good manners that Muslims are encouraged to exhibit and does not necessary mean that one believes in what they believe in.

Furthermore, they say this is a form of Da’awah and a way of reconciling the hearts of non-believers “ta’aleef al-quluub’ which is required of Muslim for shunning them and their festivals repels them and keeps them away from trying to understand what is slam is all about.

One the whole the basic principal  that we should be aware of is that “Fatwa” or ruling on religious matters is conditioned to when and where that ruling is being made in other words time and place have considerable influence on how Ulama make their fatwa. While most of the scholars in the Arabian Gulf region may not find it necessary for Muslims to make any kind of interaction with non-muslims because of the negligable number of non-muslims in the region, other scholars who have been exposed to mixed societies value this interaction as long as it practiced within the limits of islamically accpted boundries.

Allah knows best.

Abdunur Sekindi

Further reading:

http://www.islam-qa.com/en/ref/82860/chrismas

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503543368

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1119503546666&pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar%2FFatwaE%2FFatwaEAskTheScholar

MAMBO YANAYOZIDISHA RIZKI

1) Itakeni Rizki kwa kutoa sadaka.

2) Kuamka asubuhi na ukisha usome Quran

3) Kuwa mcheshi na watu.

4) Uwe mwenye maneno mazuri usiwe mwenye bughdha wala matusi n.k.

5) Ujitahidi kuweka vyombe vyako viwe visafi (vya kulia kama sahani, sufuria, n.k).

6) Ujitahidi uwe na Adabu kwa wazee wako na waislam wenzako.

7) Uswali na unamnyeyekea mola wako.

8) Uwe unasali sala ya dhuha, ambayo muda wa sala hii huanza saa moja na robo mpaka saa tatu.

9) Uwe kila siku unasoma Idhawaqaatil waqia, Tabarka, Wallayli, Alamnashrah, Yaayyuhal-Muzamil.

10) Ujitahidi uwe msafi saa zako zote unazotembea uwe na Udhu.

11) Usali sala ya witri baada ya kusali sala ya Ishaa.

12) Usikae na watu wenye Tabia za kusema watu n.k.

13) Ukithirishe kusema : Astahafiruallah kila unapokuwa huna la kusema.

Wabilahi tawfiq inshaallah!

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Salaam,

There goes the translation…

THINGS WHICH LEADS TO INCREASE ON OUR SUSTENANCE OR PROVIDENCE (RIZIKI)

1. Struggle to ensure that your sustenance riziki  come from the charity you give out.(In other words give more charity, you will get more in return).
2.Wake up early morning for prayers( Subuhi ) and prayers read the Quran
3.Try to have a pleasant personality. ( Relate well with people)
4.Be modest in your speech, avoid being one of excessive temper, nor one who uses vulgar or obscene language,etc..
5.Endeavor to keep yourself plus your environment clean. Especially on utensils like plates, saucepans etc..
6.Be respectful to your parents ( Elders) and fellow Muslims
7. Establish and be humble in your prayers
8.Endeavor to perform salatul dhuhaa, which is normally perfomed between 7am- 9am
9.Always read the following surahs, Idhaawakaatil waqiah, Tabaaraka, Walayli,Washamsi,Alam nashirakh and Yaahayu hal muzzamil
10. Always keep your body clean and ensure that you have udhu at all times

11. Perform witri prayers after salatul Ishaa
12. Stay not in the company of peolple who talk about others
13. Develop a habit of saying ‘Astaghfirullah’ every time you have nothing to say.

Wabillahi taufik Inshallah.

Aisha dimples and Fatima Omar

Inspired by Islam- Optical Illusions

 

Light is a fundamental player in our lives and it is hardly surprising that optics as a physical phenomenon has been studied and inquired about by all the great knowledge cultures, most noticeably Islam. Fuad Ali explores the value of scientific explanation of optics which mediate our ability to see each other and our surroundings, to grow food and be the cyber enthusiasts that we are today.

Scientists often build mental pictures and tools in order to explain or predict observations. These theories of physical reality, for all their occasional genius, utility and beauty are ultimately transitory and subject to improvement or overhaul. Theories occasionally run into problems explaining physical effects and run into contradictions, which limit the usefulness of the science. One such controversy was the problem of vision. From the time of Aristotle there were two contradictory theories about how we were able to see objects. The ideas were: that light radiated from the eye toward the object seen and that seeing came about from entry into the eye of an intermediary entity from the object. Both could not be equally true, but both were found to explain certain effects.

The answer might seem basic and intuitive to us today, but the method and reasons backing the scholars’ stance reflect their motivation and values, which in turn can be understood in the framework of Islam. In Kitab al Manazir, Ibn al Haytham resolves this issue through the ‘intermediary entity’ which has become the photon of modern science. He attributed the confusion to imperfect human senses and inadequate observed evidence. He gave great importance to the scrutiny of fundamental principles and premises, and stated that his intention is that, ‘all we induct and inspect being the application of truthfulness and not the pursuit of whims.’

The optical sciences were nurtured, developed and utilised during the era in which the Islamic knowledge culture led the world. Basra-born Ibn al Haythem’s career emerged within a context of significant Muslim scientific discovery and the abundance of translated Greek science; providing him with a wealth of potential knowledge to explore. He migrated to Cairo at the behest of the ruler there, who was interested in developing Al Haythem’s ideas to build an apparatus to regulate the flow of the great river Nile.

It was not in this branch of engineering, however, that Ibn al Haythem made his greatest contribution. It was in the field of optics that he brought a level of experimental rigour that surpassed both his contemporaries and those before him. He determined virtually everything that Newton advanced regarding optics centuries later and is widely regarded as the founder of optics, having studied the structure of the eye, and explained for the first time why the sun and the moon appear larger on the horizon. Very simply put, it is because the thicker layer of atmosphere at the horizon acts as magnifying lens compared to overhead.

Al-Haytham became the most quoted physicist of the Middle Ages. His works were consulted by a greater number of European scholars during the 16th and 17th centuries; more than those of Newton and Galileo combined. His research was continued two centuries later by Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi and Kamal al-Din al-Farisi. It was Qutb al-Din who gave the first correct explanation of the formation of the rainbow. Scientists of the European knowledge revival accessed works on optics through Latin translations of Arabic texts. Robert Bacon, Kepler, Snell and Fermat had directly referred to and were influenced by Ibn Al –Haythems work.

words: Fuad Ali

illustration: Ruh Al Alam

Fuad Ali is a member of the International Muslim Association of Scientists and Engineers (IMASE) http://www.imase.org

Voyage to Vietnam

 

Though tainted with the image of war, in reality Vietnam is graced with remarkable natural beauty and a thousand hidden stories.  Nabeel Osman journeys to sample a holiday destination with a difference.

 

Occupying the eastern coastline of the South East Asian peninsula, Vietnam is bounded by China to the north, by Laos and Cambodia to the west, and by the Gulf of Tonkin and the South China Sea on the east and south. The energetic, traditional cities, tranquil coastlines, breathtaking scenery, overwhelming history, culture and variety of people makes Vietnam one of South East Asia’s best kept secrets. It is quite clear that Vietnam is on its way to becoming a tourist hotspot. Indeed, I myself stumbled into Vietnam on the enthusiastic recommendations of fellow travellers in Thailand and Cambodia. I was not disappointed.

This beautiful country has managed to maintain its charm despite the rapid increase in the number of tourists over the past decade. Whether it is a family holiday, honeymoon, travelling with friends or a solitary adventure, however long you spend in Vietnam, you’ll only leave wanting more. Much more. Many westerners still imagine Vietnam through the lens of war; it is in reality a country filled with captivating natural beauty and serene village life. Its islands and beaches are among the finest in South East Asia.

Over two decades have passed since Vietnam was officially united and during that time the wounds of Vietnam have undergone a remarkable healing process. If you are fortunate enough to visit this land, I can reveal some of the key places to centre your Vietnamese adventure around. These places offer a taste of all the different flavours Vietnam has to offer.

  

Ho Chi Minh

The largest city in Vietnam is Ho Chi Minh, formerly Saigon. In the early 1990s, the government encouraged foreign investment, and with recent policies, trade agreements, and treaties Vietnam has been positioned for peace, growth and prosperity in the 21st century. Those policies have worked in tandem with preserving the wealth of history that Vietnam has to offer. Much of that history can be found in this city. Previously known as the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes, the War Remnants Museum is now the most popular museum in Ho Chi Minh and is very popular with western tourists.

This is a historical treasure chest of the Vietnamese war, providing an opportunity to find out the stories of victims of US military actions.  Despite the relative bias of the exhibits, this experience illustrates the true brutality of war. What’s more, the tunnels of Cu Chi are in easy reach from Ho Chi Minh. This series of connecting underground tunnels is part of a much larger network of tunnels that underlie much of the country. The Cu Chi tunnels were the location of several military campaigns during the Vietnam War, used by Viet Cong guerrillas as communication and supply routes. In these hidden tunnels were hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous guerrilla fighters. Part of the tunnel network remains open to explore. Provided that you are less than a size 34” waist (!), you can crawl around these tunnels and experience firsthand the ingenious features they boast. This is all part of a day tour, which teaches you a great deal about the unspoken Vietnamese war.

Dong Nai

In January 2006, Vietnam’s largest mosque was opened in Xuan Loc, Dong Nai, just south of Ho Chi Minh City. Islam in Vietnam is now seeing a renaissance, with new mosques being completed. After the first Muslim envoy to Vietnam was sent in 650 CE by Caliph Uthman, centuries later during the mid-19th century, many Muslim Chams emigrated from Cambodia and settled in the Mekong River Delta region, bolstering the presence of Islam in Vietnam. The isolation of Cham Muslims in central Vietnam resulted in an increased syncretism with Buddhism, until recent restoration of contacts with other global Muslim communities in Vietnamese cities.

There have been substantial attempts by the Vietnamese Government to improve its image internationally. Restrictions on religious freedom have been eased and many different followings are emerging in harmony with one another. As a result, Vietnam is developing into a very cosmopolitan country.

Dalat

When travelling the country from south to north, many people break up their journey by stopping in Dalat. Dalat offers a cool climate set in mountainous regions which provide a wonderful retreat from Vietnam’s hot weather.

This quaint village has a colonial French signature all over it with small wooden cottages, misty mountain tops and romantic pine forests. Dalat is great for outdoor adventure activities given its rocky terrain. I opted for canyonning (abseiling down waterfalls) during my stop over. The tour company collects you from your hotel, takes you to the rocks, trains you all day and then lets you loose on the waterfalls. This is quite a popular destination and there are lots of nice hotels, restaurants and cafés to cater for tourists. 

Hoi An

From Dalat I went to Hoi An, an exceptionally well-preserved example of a South East Asian trading port.

The buildings and street plan reflect the influences, both native and foreign, that have combined to produce this unique heritage site. The city of Hoi An is one of the quietest in Vietnam. Cars are not allowed in the main streets and, unlike in the rest of the country, motorcycles do not blow their horns all the time. Many visit for the numerous art and craft shops, and for the tailors who produce made-to-measure clothes for a fraction of what they would cost in the West. Le Loi Street offers the best for this if you want quality. You can barter with the budget tailors and find yourself paying £30 for a tailored suit.

China Beach

On the periphery of this market town is the most unspoilt, endless white sand of China Beach. The main beach is officially around the Non Nuoc resort hotel. Locals say that the real China Beach is at My Khe Beach, about 5km north of the hotel.

China Beach extends north and south of the Marble Mountains (a popular  tourist attraction). This is a trendy strip for beach activities like windsurfing, snorkelling, swimming and sunbathing, yet given its sheer size, it provides the ultimate resting point, where you will always find a quiet spot to treat like your very own private beach. There are lots of good places to eat in and around China Beach and in Hoi An. Vietnamese food is some of the most delicious you will find the world over. It has a slight variation on the standard Thai dishes you may expect, and you will often find restaurants serving cuisine from all corners of the globe. Menus generally cater for everyone’s taste and the food is always very good quality and healthy. There are a handful of fresh seafood restaurants along China Beach offering different daily specials, likely to be fish caught that day. You will not be disappointed. And after dinner try Vietnamese coffee – it beats most coffee shop offerings the UK has to offer hands down!

Hanoi

After managing to find a cheap Air Asia flight, I journeyed from Hoian to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. Hanoi is considered the cultural centre of Vietnam, being home to the Temple of Literature, site of the oldest university in Vietnam. It served for more than 700 years as a centre for Confucian learning. In 2004, a massive part of the 900 year old citadel was discovered in central Hanoi, near the site of Ba Dinh square. The city boasts more than 1,000 years of history, and that of the past few hundred years has been well preserved.

On the more recent side of history, check out the modern approach to life in Hanoi: if you like designer clothing and accessories, you will absolutely love Hanoi’s massive indoor markets. If you’re looking for something a little more humble, there are always the outdoor stalls spread with the more affordable and cultural merchandise. Once you have soaked up all the city has to offer, old and new, it’s time for a visit to

Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay Ha Long Bay is a few hours away by coach. You can go for a day trip, but I would thoroughly recommend that you go on at least an overnight trip, if not for two or three nights. From the marina, you will go out on what’s called a ‘junk’ (a sleeper boat).

Ha Long Bay features more than a thousand awesome limestone karsts and islands of various sizes and shapes along the 120-km coastline of Bai Chay Beach. Its waters are host to a great top seven storeys: Thien Mu Pagoda of Hue, constructed in 1844 variety of ecosystems including offshore coral reefs, freshwater swamp forests, mangrove forests, small freshwater lakes, and sandy beaches. This is one of the most picturesque places in the world, especially if you have the opportunity to see both sunset and sunrise. Premium excursion providers arrange activities such as a cave visit and kayaking during your time out on the junk.

If you want photos: Vicente Guerrero Gimeno something more mature or privacy for you and your family, you can hire your own junk with a crew to take you out for the day. Ha Long Bay is a spectacular way to bring your visit of Vietnam to an end.

Planning your trip

As I first started to plan my trip around Vietnam, I read travel guides, looked on the internet and asked English-speaking locals so that I could make a suitable itinerary. In reality, you find that your itinerary writes itself. Upon arrival, you will be amazed at how easy it is to travel from one place to the next. I travelled from south to north, but met many people along the way who were going from north to south and then onto Cambodia.

The advantage of not planning your trip so rigidly is that when you find you want to spend more time in one place, there is nothing to stop you. I remember finding myself spending an extra three days in Hoian upon finding China Beach! Despite having more than two weeks to play with, during my visit, I felt I was on a squeezed time schedule. There is a lot I saw, but there is even more that I missed, such as the Cai Rang floating market and the Mekong Delta. Yet, to attempt to tell you all about what I saw in a short review of this vast country would be difficult; to tell you about all you could potentially see – impossible! Be sure to have a travel guide with you or at the very least research the areas you want to visit before going. Don’t be afraid to ask the locals and other tourists for travel advice once you are there too.

Everyone is very receptive and welcoming. Have plenty of US dollars; the Vietnamese Dong can be useless in places and is very difficult to change back if you have any left over. This is truly a magnificent country, one which I would strongly recommend visiting sooner rather than later. Much of South East Asia has had its natural beauty, Vietnam still retains its charm. It is a great holiday destination which offers everything to make the perfect getaway: natural beauty, history, culture and above all, an opportunity to relax!

FACTS ABOUT VIETNAM

Caliph Uthman sent the first official Muslim envoy to Vietnam in 650 CE

Vietnam was colonised by the French in the 19th century

The Vietnam War occurred from 1959 – 1975, fought between the communist North Vietnam and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the US

75 million people live in Vietnam

Vietnam is the world’s second largest rice exporter after Thailand. Last year it exported 5 million tonnes compromised by too many tourists affecting the development of land

iCover – a photobook on Muslim women

 

Book by Sadaf Syed

Review by Rahima B Miah

Sadaf Syed’s photo-essay on American Muslim women captures a reality that is rarely given much substance. The glossy photographs have the effect of shattering the ‘glassing ceiling’ as the images vividly portray Muslim women in a light contrary to the commonly held stereotypes.

The author shares both her story and stories of the women she has photographed, discussing the reservations and the responsibility the veil symbolises. As the veil is stereotyped as going against the ideals of modernity the women illustrate that they are in fact not much different from the average American

woman. The inspiration behind the veil Syed states is to ‘adopt the divine definition of femininity.’ Living by this definition does not in any form hinder their personal freedom or their individuality rather it has liberated them from the clutches of synthetic beauty. Regular surfers Sama Wareh and Aurelia Khatib clearly show that although the hijab is not typical beach attire, this does not prevent them from hitting the waves!

Stunning pictures present various vocations: the patriotic woman, the professional woman, the sportswoman, the artist and the mother. Sadaf Syed clearly illustrates that beyond the veil live women who are pursuing their passions and ambitions. Seeing such pro-activism, in particular with the images of the women surfing, boxing and riding a motorbike transcends the perception of Muslim women as being trapped in medieval practices. Contrary to common expression ‘a picture speaks a thousand words’, there is one resonating message that is being pervaded – all of these women are the modern women of today.

The book opens with a poem called ‘Her Honor’ which embraces the American motto ‘land of the free’. The poet, Haniya Malik, encourages the pursuit of alternative forms of respect in a land that ordains freedom for all. The effect of this poem is that it builds a form of encouragement and resilience against conforming to narrowly defined perfection.

The causal tone of this book instantly draws the reader and makes them feel as though Sadaf Syed is sitting next to them voicing both her experiences and the experiences of the other hijabi women. The reader is endowed with appreciation, motivation and encouragement when perusing through this book.

iCover is a book suitable for everyone to read. I would recommend this book, especially to young teenage girls looking for role models and for those who are of the perception that the veil does not enable individuals from leading a life of a modern woman.

Go to www.sadafsyed.com for more information 

Sacred Houses of Worship – Mosques in China

Issue 73 October 2010

 

Eighty years after the hijrah, Pagoda-style mosques emerged in China. Ethar El-Katatney explores four of  the 45,000 mosques in China. 

 

My first sight of a Chinese mosque literally took my breath away. To come across something so different and yet so familiar, so beautiful and so stunning, brought tears to the eyes of many of my fellow travellers.

There are approximately 45,000 mosques in China. Some, mostly in Western China, follow the traditional mosque style – tall minarets, arches and domes. But in Eastern China, the majority don’t, seeing minarets as foreign to their culture. Instead, they fuse together Islamic and Chinese architecture. 

Chinese Muslim architecture began by imitating the sacred religion that came before Islam, in this case Tibetan Buddhism; and by respecting the sacred architecture of the temples around them whilst making their mosques uniquely Islamic. 

In Chinese architecture, symmetry is very important, and the Chinese mosques follow that style. Likewise, landscapes are sacralised through the creation of asymmetrical gardens, built to allow the visitor to meander through. 

On the outside, the majority of the mosques are built in pagoda style – tiered towers with multiple flared protruding eaves. Ancient Chinese tradition believes that cubes represent the earth and circles represent the sky – as such, some Chinese Muslims believe the Ka’ba as a cube represents the earth, in union with the sky above it. And so pagodas are the norm for Chinese mosques. Colours are also symbolic, red for the earth and blue for the sky, the former usually on the arches of the mosque and the latter on the ceiling. 

Walk inside a mosque and the Chinese-Islamic presence is immediately felt: prayer timings in Arabic and Chinese, reed prayer mats, tablets and vases with Arabic calligraphy, a mimbar and mihrab, a Chinese imam making du’a in Arabic, Qur’ans in Chinese and Arabic, and walled courtyards with incense burners. 

If you take the summation of Chinese architecture as a whole, you will realise in the Islamic context that you are really able to see its beauty, since without statues one can really focus on intricate simplicity.

Depending on the area of China you are in, the number, size and beauty of the mosques differ. But everywhere you go, you will encounter the same mosque-goers: men with snowy white beards, women with serene faces, and children with ready smiles.  

The overall impact of the mosques is momentous, illustrating Islam’s capacity for expressing unity in diversity.

Tong Xin Great Mosque

Portrait by Yang Guiping

Built in the early period of the Ming dynasty (from 1368), the Tong Xin mosque is a key relic of the country. The mosque was built with a combined style of traditional Chinese architecture, with an Islamic influence in its woodwork and brick carving. The mosque in its entirety is five-room wide and nine-room deep, with a pavilion style construction in front of the service hall. 

The Grand Mosque of Xian

Portraits by Shahbaz Anwar & Saima Akhtar

Built in the Tang dynasty in the 7th century, it is said to be one of the first mosques in China. Located in the middle of the Muslim Quarter in Xian, where over 70,000 Muslims live, it is an oasis of tranquility.

To get to the prayer hall, I had to walk through a sprawling complex of lush gardens filled with cobblestone pathways and pools of water lilies to the background of birds chirping. The mosque grounds, covering an area of over 13,000m2, were built with the aim of allowing the worshipper to empty his mind of worldly distractions. There are five main courtyards, each with a signature pavilion and old stone archways inscribed with both Chinese and Arabic lettering: “May the religion of the Pure and Real spread wisdom throughout the land” and “The mosques are the markets of the afterlife.”

In the centre courtyard, you come across the Pavilion for Introspection, with a 10-metre brick tower that serves as a minaret. Three stories high, the tower’s eaves are decorated with blue glazed tiles and carved dragonheads.

The ceiling of the magnificent prayer hall, covering an area of 1,270m2, is covered with the names of God written in patterns of flowers. But it is the walls that are truly breathtaking: wooden boards engraved with the entire Qur’an – in both Arabic and Chinese.

The painted wooded mihrab is in a special enclave, surrounded by detailed and intricate Qur’anic inscriptions. Imbedded in a pool of lotus, the inscriptions are simultaneously Chinese and Islamic. 

Beautiful and serene, the Xian Mosque receives tens of thousands of visitors each year. Every day 100 – 200 people pray here. In Ramadan, between five and six hundred pray tarawih.

Niujie Mosque

Portrait by Shahbaz Anwar

There are 200,000 Muslims in Beijing, and a tenth of them centered in the Niujie district – the highlight of which is one of the ancient mosques in China. At 1,014 years old, covering nearly 10,000 square metres, it has 11 imams, and is visited by more than 200 people every day. On Friday, nearly a thousand worshippers attend congregational prayer.

There are 72 mosques in Beijing, but none comes remotely close to the beauty of the Niujie mosque. Split up into male and female ablution rooms and prayer areas, there are numerous courtyards and gardens throughout, a Qur’an school and several halls for classes and other events. There are two shaykhs buried in the complex who had come to China 700 years ago to teach Islam, and their graves are honoured with carved tablets. 

Outside the prayer area is the ‘Watching Moon Tower,’ a magnificent hexagonal, two-storied pagoda painted in reds, blues and greens. It was so named because it was used by the imam to sight the moon in order to determine the start of Ramadan. 

Inside the prayer hall, you are greeted with a riot of colours – rich maroon archways with yellow inscriptions, and blue ceiling beams decorated with intricate designs and paintings of gardens, trees and flowers – no humans or animals. Master calligraphy of Qur’anic passages line the archways, and huge circular tablets are hung on the walls. Chinese lanterns, glass beads and coloured glass adorn the corners of the mosque, and a sign with ‘Allah’ on it hangs above the mimbar – near which a wooden stick stands to commemorate the stick the Prophet Muhammad used when he preached.

The mihrab is inlaid with wooden and bronze carvings, and was brought over from Yemen 1,000 years ago. Inscribed with verses of the Qur’an, it occupies a special place in the hearts of the worshippers.

The Huaisheng Mosque

Portrait by Cherie Wendelken*

*1984, Courtesy of the Aga kHAN visual archive, MIT

Also known as the Lighthouse Mosque, it is the main mosque of Guangzhou, and was originally built 1,300 years ago, making it one, if not the first mosque in China. It is said to have been built by Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas, an uncle of the Prophet Muhammad.

Fusing Chinese and Arab architecture, the mosque complex covers an area of about 3,000m2. Through a number of gates, you come across a tower with a plaque in Chinese on it that reads “Religion that holds in great esteem the teachings brought from the Western Region.” The prayer hall is surprisingly plain, with one distinctive Qur’anic inscription above the mihrab.

But it is the freestanding brick minaret that is the mosque’s most distinctive feature. Thirty six metres high, capped with a small dome on a thin turret, it is cylindrical with two internal stairways, and the balcony is thought to have been a beacon to boats.

There are six main buildings in the complex: the Imam’s Quarters, the Wangyue Attic, the Covered Corridor, the Storehouse of Islamic Scripture, the Stone Steles Pavilion and the Light Tower.

Proud to be a “stranger”

by Amber Rehman

Abdullah ibn Masud, said: “the Prophet (saw) said ‘Islam began as something
strange, and it will revert to being strange as it was in the beginning, so good
tidings for the strangers.’ Some asked, ‘Who are the strangers?’ He said, ‘The
ones who break away from their people (literally, ‘tribes’) for the sake of
Islam.'” (Sahih Muslim, Ibn Majah)

There is an incredible lesson in the above Hadith, which we need to repeat to
ourselves over and over again. As a 20-year-old Muslima, I find my practice of
Islam feeling stranger by the day. There is a norm that we have to live up to in
this society, and if we don’t meet it, we will be called strangers.

Did amazing in school and could talk my way out of anything

When I was in high school, I was an average, overachieving teenager, with a
serious superficial streak. I did amazing in school, could talk my way out of
anything, and had to look as though I belonged on the modeling runways, that
were called the high
school hallways.

A great education and an even better career lay ahead of me. I was the master of
my own destiny, what more could I ask for?

I was no longer in control

While I was planning my Sweet 16 bash, my grandfather, who I loved a lot, fell
ill and passed away.

Suddenly I wasn’t in control. I saw someone moving on to the unknown. I had
never been so near death before.

The realization hit then, that the tangible wasn’t the ultimate reality. I could
no longer find reason, purpose or consolation in good grades, praise or even
good looks.

Everything lost its meaning for I saw my grandfather, without his worldly
possessions, in a shroud. The only things he could take with him were his deeds
and intentions.

Everything finally made sense, for as I prayed for Allah to give him ease in his
grave, I thought of mine, as I prayed to meet him again in the Akhira, I had to
think of preserving mine.

All I had ever strived for fell to pieces.

As the Quran replaced my pointless and juicy novels, I realized that of all
creation, Allah has created us with a conscious, and free will. Why would we let
our free will work against us?

Family, friends, and fortune are all relative, they would go as easy as they
came. We had to take everything as a teacher, and learn to do better for the
sake of our souls.

Could not be alone with myself

With all of this it became apparent, that living with the norm of society, I
wasn’t allowed to be alone with myself. I had to be surrounded with friends, or
be reading some novel or other, and the music was always blaring in the
background.

Feeling strangeness

Silence was deafening, and noise was the only peace. To communicate with Allah,
and to pray, I felt strangeness when there was silence accompanied by peace as
my heart turned to my Lord.

Working to please myself, would’ve only given me peace in this life, but just
the mere intention of doing things for the sake of Allah, would preserve this
life and the next.

Other young Muslims who were once with me have lost the strangeness

Five years have passed since that epiphanous age of mine and now I find my
brothers and sisters, who had commenced the search with me are now leaving the
Deen.

The folds of Islam are not satisfactory any more. When I ask them why their only
answer is that Islam did not give anything back to them as a social system as a
community. It did not feed their needs and their spiritual thirst. It had to do
with the harshness of other Muslims.

I wonder about this a lot since it affects my faith as well as the faith of
those who say it. Even though Allah has created us and has preferred us as a
Jamaah the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) still acknowledged the time
when there would be people struggling alone for righteousness.

And the only answer I can come up with is that this world is mostly a sowing
ground. We can’t reap everything here. That’s why there is a day of
accountability which will restore justice and mercy.

The strangeness does go away

Now as I struggle to maintain my Islam, I find practicing my faith in this world
feels strange only so long as I surround myself with worldly things and people.
When I turn to Allah’s creation, I feel the strangeness fade away.

If nature, as it is subservient to the Will of the Creator, has harmony when the
wind blows and rustles its leaves, I don’t see why our souls and hearts can’t
move to the same command.

In our time, and our part of the world, if nothing is strange and nothing
immoral, I guess it’s only good then, if we feel connected to the strange.

‘Good tidings for the strangers.’

Ahmed Wetaka
P.O BOX 2488
Mbale- Uganda
Mobile +256 772 609736

ABLUTION (WUDUU)

God has decreed four steps for ablution. Ablution is very simple and easy as you can see in the verse that explains it.

O you who believe, when you observe the Contact Prayers (Salat), you shall: (1) wash your faces, (2) wash your arms to the elbows, (3) wipe your heads, and (4) wash your feet to the ankles. If you were unclean due to sexual orgasm, you shall bathe. If you are ill, or traveling, or had any digestive excretion (urinary, fecal, or gas), or had (sexual) contact with the women, and you cannot find water, you shall observe the dry ablution (Tayammum) by touching clean dry soil, then rubbing your faces and hands. GOD does not wish to make the religion difficult for you; He wishes to cleanse you and to perfect His blessing upon you, that you may be appreciative.

[Quran 5:6]

 

Water For To Be Used For Wudhu: –

1. Rain water, Well water, spring, sea or river water, Water of melting snow or hail, or Water of a big tank or pond.  Water left over after drinking by human beings, Halaal animals (e.g. cows, goats, and pigeons is clean).

 

Water That Can’t Be Used For Wudhu:

Water that has changed its colour, taste and smell or has become thick, Water extracted from fruit and trees, or in which najis has fallen (e.g. urine, blood, wine); Water left over after drinking by animals (whose meat is not eaten except a cat), e.g. dogs, pigs or animals of prey

 

THE ACTUAL ABLUTION (WUDHU‘)

1. Draw the intention that the act is for the purpose of worship and purity, start by saying Bismillah. Face the direction of the Holy kaaba if possible.

2. Using clean water, Wash both hands up to the wrists together three times, ensuring that every part including between the fingers is wetted by water

3. Taking a handful of water into the mouth, rinse the mouth thrice. It is sunnat to use a miswaak during wudhu

4. Snuff water contained in the right palm into the nose and then eject the water with the left hand (thrice)

5. Wash the face with both hands, ear to ear, from the hairy part of the forehead to chin, three times

6. Wash the right arm thoroughly from the wrist to the elbow (make sure the elbow is thoroughly wetted) three times. Repeat the same with the left hand.

7. Run moistened hands over the head from forehead to the back and back to forehead (once) – and Wipe the inside of the ears with the forefingers and their outer sides with the thumbs (once). This should be done with wet fingers.

8. Wash both feet (beginning with the right foot) up to the ankles starting from the right and ensuring that all parts particularly between the toes are wetted. Use the left hand for cleaning of toes and washing of the feet.

 

The process ends with the recitation of the Kalimatush-Shahad
“ASH-HADU ALLA ILAHA ILLALLAHU WA-ASH-HADU
AN-NA MUHAMMADAN ‘ABDUHU-WA-RASULUH”

 

At this stage the ablution is complete, and the person who has performed it is ready to start to start his prayer. When the ablution is valid a person may keep it as long as he can, and may use it for as many prayers as he wishes. But it is preferable to renew it as often as possible.

 

If you had performed complete “Wudhu” before putting on your socks (must be of a thick material), it is not necessary to remove them when you want to repeat the performance of “Wudhu”. It is enough to wipe over the socked feet with wet hands. This may be done for a period of one day for a resident, (and three days on journey) on the condition that the socks are never removed. If they are removed, it is necessary to re-wash the feet for Wudhu.

AbdulRahim Mbabazi

Unity and Brotherhood in Islam

As a yardstick and criterion in our lives, Islam has given us a clear definition of unity and brotherhood and how it can be realized and implemented.  The uniting factor is the `Aqeedah (creed of Islam)” which defines the belief of a Muslim.

Unlike other bonds (nationalistic, patriotic, etc.) which are superficial, animalistic, reactive, emotional, and completely devoid of a real solution for life’s affairs, the intellectuality of the ideological bond of Islam unites man irrespective of their race, nationality, and other factors which are irrelevant when it comes to bonding on an ideological creed.

Allah in the Qur’an describes what is unity in Islam as the Mu’minoon (Believers; those that believe in Allah and His Messenger Muhammad) being united in a Brotherhood based on solely Islam:

“The Mu’minoon are but a single Brotherhood.” (The Holy Qur’an, 49:10)

Allah further defines this Brotherhood by explaining that Muslims are awliyyaa’ (allies, friends, supporters) of one another, and this again is based solely on Islam:

“The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin the ma`roof (all of Islam), and forbid the munkar (all that is evil; kufr): they observe regular prayers, pay Zakat, and obey Allah and His Messenger. On them will Allah pour His mercy: for Allah is Exalted in power, Wise.” (The Holy Qur’an, 9:71)

Muhammad (Salla Allahu `alaihi wa sallam) indicated in several Ahadith on unity and brotherhood as we can see in his (saaws) Farewell Sermon (khuTbat ul-wadaa`):

“All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood.”

Other Ahadith further elaborate on the concept of unity and brotherhood:

“A Muslim is the brother of another Muslim. He does not oppress him, nor does he leave him at the mercy of others.” (Sahih Muslim Book 032, Number 6219)

“Do not find fault with your own Muslim brothers.” (49:11)

A Muslim should pay more attention to his own deeds and try to amend his own mistakes. There is no need to probe and find the faults or mistakes of others.

“Do not call one another by insulting nicknames.” (49:11)

Every Muslim has a good name; call others by their proper name or by a nickname which they use for themselves. But never call names because Allah does not like that one Muslim should insult his own brother-in-faith.

“O you who believe! Avoid most of the suspicious [thoughts about other Muslims].” (49:12)
The reason why Allah wants us to avoid most of the suspicious thoughts about other Muslims has been explained by Allah in the next sentence: “Surely suspicion in most cases is a sin.” Islam wants you to think positively about your Muslim brother and sister.

The Prophet said, “None of you will have faith till he wishes for his (Muslim) brother what he likes for himself.” (Sahih Al-Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 12)

The message is clear: Whatever is happening to others in the Brotherhood, is actually happening to yourself. Any aggression against any part of the Brotherhood is an aggression against the whole ummah.

AbdulRahim Mbabazi

ambabazi@gmail.com

Poem by a student in Green Hill Academy

A special message for the parents.’

Parents, children are a photocopy of their parents’ character
You are the hydro power dams from which they
Can tap the power of living light.
But if the dams are empty of values, and the water levels are too low,
What will they tap? Only darkness.
Many parents are suffering from T.B, Too Busy!

Yes, the cost of living is high, but the cost of loving is affordable.
There’s God to help you.

Each child is a goldmine and it’s the parents to mine the gold out of them
Sarcastically, there are parents who see their children as a form of tax;
Tax on their time, tax on their comfort and tax on their freedom
And immediately send them to boarding school even in nursery,
So as to evade these taxes.
Remember, children are like the Global Fund, a gift and a donor fund from
God,
You will have to provide full accountability for their use or
mismanagement,
You shall be audited

The home is the first classroom in which a child sits.
But unfortunately, the teachers i.e. the parents, have absconded from duty
And if you ask them, they will tell you,
To them, TV is their daddy, they see him every day
The radio is their mummy; she talks to them whenever they want
Parents, these are your children and, have boarded the wrong taxis,
to the Northern bypass of destruction

Physically, they maybe in University, but mentally, they are in
kindergarten
With their minds still wrapped up in nappies.
Don’t just be the head of the home but head the home

Forget not, PARENT means;
P – Personal Friend,
A – Available,
R – Responsible,
N – Nurtures and
T – Teaches

Now is the time for IDPs (Internally Displaced Parents) to return home,
So that the reconstruction of the family can begin.
There are parents who are living in camps of bondage called bars;
Cross generational rapports…..
They need to come home for the family is under attack

Many homes used to be like Celtel, Making Life Better,
But now, they have become like Baghdad , daily explosions of verbal
artillery,
All this detonated by marital conflicts!
You the parents, have become suicide bombers, blowing up our future
When we see daddy approaching, ‘black mamba is about to strike’
We take cover as he comes heavily armed with words of mass destruction.
Other parents are like UMEME, they load shed their time for their children,

Even up to one week and the kids end up in a black out of values.
The lucky ones survive if they have friends, who act as generators,
providing insufficient power

The parliament and cabinet are the brain of the government
But the family is the foot of the nation.
When it fails to stand, the nation falls
Parents, have time for your children.

Say, ‘NEVER AGAIN’

Wrong for a woman to deny the husband sex because she fears to spoil her hair

Assalam alaikum.

It is very wrong for a woman to deny the husband sex because she fears to spoil her hair. But think about this.

All of us know how irritating our own short hair can be when it delays to dry up after a shower. Women hair is much longer and can take up to i hour to dry naturally/with a towel. If we agree that Allah requires us to be considerate, then we have an obligation to understand that if you get sex at night and she showers prior to Subhi/Fajr, then she, quite justifiably has the right to be reluctant (NOT TO REFUSE) to a next request at 9 AM later that day because:

1) The more frequent the exposure to water, the more frequently one has to re-plait their hair. Who has never seen corporate women looking like mad people, covering heads with polythene bags during rain because of what water can do to plaited hair?

Now, the obedient muslim woman is prepared to wet/wash her hair ten times a week to be able to pray but ask a typical Muslim man (myself inclusive) to part with 25,000 shs per week for the saloon and the ‘obedient’ woman will be labelled ‘materialistic’ ‘demanding’ ‘wasteful’ and all. Yet without that ‘servicing’, her hair will feel like ‘cat-fur’ and nobody wants to feel like they are caressing a cat! That is where we must be understanding considerate and play our part as REAL MEN.

2) Some will suggest that let her shave the hair and have it short but the same are not prepared to keep a wife who looks, in all material respects like a man. You will now start admiring the well kept hair of Annet and Sharon at work, forgetting that they wet it once every month, dry it instantly in the salon and re-touch it. Let us be considerate.

Besides, didnt the Prophet (SAW) advise than women keep their hair long and men keep theirs short (and the beard long)??

(Within our limited means) Lets buy our wives hair driers at home, pay UMEME bills on time, have at least a kettle to warm showering water when the weather is harsh, PAY for the salon with reasonable frequency and we shall have less and less women complaining about hair and sex.

Regards,

Fazhil.

mwesigwafazhil@yahoo.com

ON BURNING OF QURAN

ON  BURNING  OF  QURAN Who is burning the Quran? A Christian priest? Ask a question, if I write the name of Jesus Christ on a piece of paper 29 times and give it to him to burn it, will he burn it? If I write the name of Moses on a piece of paper and give it to a Jew, will he burn it? What they intend to burn is the same. In the Quran the name of Jesus Christ is mentioned with great Honour 29 times and the name of Moses with dignity 129 times, while the name of Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon all of them) is mentioned just 4 times. In addition all the 24 prophets mentioned in the Quran are there in the Bible. Make them aware that they are burning the names of Jesus Christ, Moses and all 24 prophets. The problem is none of them have ever cared to read the Quran. My request to them is to read the Quran’s translation in their own language (easily available free in mosques and in Islamic Centers) and then decide whether burning the Quran is justified or not. I may assure them that they will highly regret in their lives when at a later date they read it. All the allegations of immorality on Mother Mary, Jesus Christ and other prophets mentioned in different books have been very neatly refuted in the Quran. Mother Mary has been given the highest Honour amongst all the women of the World. Read it you will be enlightened. Birth of Moses and his marriage has been described in the most respectful manner. Not a single derogatory word has been used in the Quran for any of the prophets those mentioned in the Bible. Why burn the Quran? Burn those books in which baseless allegations have been put on many of the prophets of God. That will be fully justified. Once you read its translation, you will be convinced that it is the best book on earth, every word is of God, the God of Adam, Abraham, Moses and Jesus (peace be upon them all). Not a single word has changed in 1431 years. It is in its original, pristine form preserved in Turkey and in Leningrad . It is totally a wrong concept that it was written by the prophet Muhammad (pbuh). How can a person who did not know how to read anything or write, can write a book of over 600 pages without any mistake, describing the advance theory of science and space? He could not even put his signature on the letters which he sent to the heads of states, he used to stamp them with a seal of his name. Moreover the Quran is in the highest literary form of Arabic language, which he did not speak; he used to speak colloquial Arabic. How can Quran be considered man made; a book which describes intricate embryological development of a fetus, space science, complicated oceanography and in over 1400 years no one has found any contradiction or any mistake? Every word of the Quran is the word of God, the same God of Adam, Abraham Moses and Jesus Christ. How can anyone even think of burning the words of your own God? What is radical about Islam or the teachings of the Quran? Without reading it you call it radical! Bring a single copy of the Bible which is in its original form. What amount of changes is made in the Bible by men to the words of God? Who gave them the authority in the very first place to change the words of God, revise and re-revise the Bible? But still we do not call it radical. We also have appeal to the Muslims of the whole world don’t even think of burning a single copy of the Bible in retaliation because the Bible has the names of our 24 prophets whom all we respect from the core of our hearts. Coming down to the most crucial point of 9/11: The allegation is again on the Muslim, so they decided to burn the Quran, stop building an Islamic Center in Manhattan near Ground Zero. Have a look at the documentaries made on the truth of 9/11. These documentaries are proved without the shadow of doubt there in the scenario of 9/11 in the year 2001, no Muslim was involved. In one of the documentary it said loud and clear  that no Muslim is involved in 9/11 . Amazing, all the documentaries and films are made by Americans and that too Christians. Go through each and every documentary on U-Tube, you will be amazed, who did it – you have to decide yourself of course not any Muslim?  The preparation was done three months before 9/11. If anyone considers these documentaries are not authentic, why can’t they take the producers to the courts and involve FBI to investigate how dare they can make such movie which has tarnished the image of America all over the world and the whole world had sunk in deep recession shattering the economy of all the countries. What benefit they achieved by doing so? Thousands of Americans were killed and even are being killed today. Trillions of Dollars have burnt in smoke, millions of innocent people were killed and other multimillions suffered. Why don’t these preachers of peace go after them who did it? Why Muslims and why Quran? Documentary List 9/11 102 Minutes That Changed America 9/11 and the British Broadcasting Conspiracy 9/11 Eyewitness 9/11 Mysteries 9/11 Revisited, Were Explosives Used? 9/11: Press For Truth 9/11: The Road To Tyranny A New Standard of Deception Aftermath: Unanswered Questions from 9/11 Anthrax War Core of Corruption: In the Shadows Fabled Enemies Fahrenheit 9/11 Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire Improbable Collapse: The Demolition of Our Republic In Their Own Words: The Untold Stories of the 9/11 Families Loose Change, Final Cut Martial Law 9/11: The Rise of the Police State National Security Alert The 9/11 Chronicles: Truth Rising The Elephant In The Room The Great Conspiracy Towers of Deception: The Media Cover-Up of 9/11 War and Globalization: The Truth Behind 9/11 (Lecture) Zero: An Investigation into 9/11

Syed Sajjad Hussain

MUSLIM FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE??

 

Hajji Hassan Kibirige was best friends with Sheikh Kulumba

Many hadith describe the status of two people who love one another for the sake of Allah, and describe the high position in Paradise which He has promised them and the great honour which He will bestow upon them on the Day when mankind is resurrected to meet the Rabb (Lord) of the Worlds: Among them is the hadith which describes the seven whom Allah will shade on the Day when there is no shade but His:

1, a just leader;

2, a youth who grows up worshipping Allah;

3, a person who is deeply attached to the masjid;

4, two people who love one another for the sake of Allah, meeting for His sake and parting for His sake;

5, a man who is called by a beautiful woman and says, I fear Allah;

6, a person who gives charity in secret such that their left hand does not know what their right hand is doing;

7, a person who remembers Allah when they are alone and their eyes fill with tears.” (Bukhari and Muslim)

The two who love one another for the sake of Allah are clearly shown to be among those whom Allah will shelter with His shade and upon whom He will shower His mercy and kindness. What a great honour! It is enough honour for those who love one another for the sake of Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta`ala) that their Almighty Rabb will greet them on the Day of Resurrection and say to them:

“Where are those who loved one another for My glory? Today I will shade them in My shade on the Day when there is no shade but Mine.” (Muslim)

Such is the magnificent honour and tremendous reward that will be bestowed upon those who truly loved one another for the sake of Allah (subhanahu wa ta`ala), on that awesome Day.

Love for the sake of Allah, and not for the sake of anything else in this life which is filled with greed, desires and interests, is very difficult, and none can attain it except the one who is pure of heart, for whom this world is as nothing compared to the pleasure of Allah. It is not surprising that Allah should give them a status and blessing which is commensurate with their position in this world, above whose concerns they have risen.. We find proof of this in the hadith of Mu’adh who said that the Prophet (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) said:

“Allah said: ‘Those who love one another for My glory, will have minbars of light, and the Prophets and martyrs will wish that they had the same.”[Reported by al-Tirmidhi, who said it is a hasan sahih hadith]

Allah gives to those who love one another for His sake a gift which is even greater than this status and blessing: that is His precious love which is very difficult to attain. This is proven by the hadith of Abu Hurayrah (radhiallahu `anhu) in which the Prophet (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) said:

“A man went to visit a brother of his in another village. Allah sent an angel to wait for him on the road. When the man came along, the angel asked him, ‘Where do you intend to go?’ He said, ‘I am going to visit a brother of mine who lives in this village.’ The angel asked, ‘Have you done him any favour (for which you are now seeking repayment)?’ He said, ‘No. I just love him for the sake of Allah.’ The angel told him, I am a messenger to you from Allah, sent to tell you that He loves you as you love your brother for His sake.”‘ (Muslim)

What a great love, that raises a man to a position where Allah loves him and is pleased with him!

The teaching of the Prophet (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) states that the better of two people who love one another for the sake of Allah is the one who loves the other more. The Prophet (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) said:

“No two people love one another, but the better of them is the one whose love the other more.” [Reported by Bukhari in al-Adab al-Mufrad]

Islam goes even further in spreading love in the rightly guided Muslim society by telling the Muslim that if he loves his brother, he should tell him. The Prophet (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) said:

“If a man loves his brother, let him tell him that he loves him.“ [Reported by Abu Dawud and al-Tirmidhi, who said it is a sahih hadith]

The Prophet (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) understood the impact of this strong, pure love in building societies and nations, so he never let any occasion pass without advocating this love and commanding the Muslims to announce their love for one another, in order to open hearts and spread love and purity among the ranks of the Ummah.

Anas (radhiallahu `anhu) said that a man was with the Prophet (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam), when another man passed by. The first man said, “O Messenger of Allah, indeed I truly love this man.” The Prophet (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) asked him, “Have you let him know that?” He said, “No.” The Prophet (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) said, “Tell him.” He caught up with him and told him, “Truly I love you for the sake of Allah,” and the man said, “May Allah love you who loves me for His sake.” [Reported by Abu Dawud, with a sahih isnad]

Mu’adh(radhiallahu `anhu) began to spread this pure love among the Muslims throughout the Muslim lands, telling them what he had heard from the Prophet (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) about the great reward that Allah had prepared for those who loved one another for His sake, and about His great love for them. In al-Muwatta’, Imam Malik(rahmatullahi alaiyh) gives a report with a sahih isnad from Abu Idris al-Khulani who said:

“I entered the masjid of Damascus , where I saw a young man who had a bright smile, and I saw the people gathered around him. When they disagreed on some matter, they referred it to him, and accepted his opinion. I asked who he was, and they told me, ‘This is Mu’adh ibn Jabal (radhiallahu `anhu).” Early the next day, I went to the mosque but I found that he had arrived even earlier than I. He was praying, so I waited until he had finished, then I approached him from in front, greeted him and said, ‘By Allah I love you.’ He said, ‘For the sake of Allah?’ I said, ‘For the sake of Allah’. He repeated his question, ‘For the sake of Allah?’ and I said, ‘For the sake of Allah.’  So he took hold of my collar and pulled me towards him and said, ‘I have good news for you.  I heard the Prophet (sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam) say:  “Allah Almighty says:  ‘My love is granted to those who love one another for My sake, who visit one another for My sake, and who spend on one another for My sake.'”‘

ADVICE:

 

Please try to make MOST of your friends on the basis of both of you being Muslims, and there is no better starting point than this forum where you are a member. It may reduce the kind of disappointments we all get from our friends. It may also keep the friendship long-lasting. My grandfather, Hajji Hassan Kibirige, had that kind of relationship with late sheikh Islaam Kulumba(former Buganda Speaker). It was the kind of friendship anybody would be proud of: open, loving and reliable. Kulumba explained to me one day why his friendship with my grandfather had lasted that long and he said that the main reason was: loving each other for the sake of Allah.

 

Therefore, let us all try to get those kinds of friends who love us because we are Muslims and can do anything for us. I bet they are better than friends we make for other reasons. ‘Enugu’ or jealousy tends to be low with this kind of friendship.

—

Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba

Blogs:
http://ugandansatheart.wordpress.com/
http://semuwemba.wordpress.com/
http://ekitibwakyabuganda.wordpress.com/
https://ugandamuslims.wordpress.com/

”We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what  is best for society.” (Hillary Clinton, 1993)

Boxer Muhammad Ali’s life lessons through his daughters eyes

The following incident took place when Muhammad Ali’s daughters arrived at his home wearing clothes that were not modest. Here is the story as told by one of his daughters:

When we finally arrived, the chauffeur escorted my younger sister, Laila, and me up to my father’s suite. As usual, he was hiding behind the door
waiting to scare us. We exchanged many hugs and kisses as we could possibly give in one day.

My father took a good look at us. Then he sat me down on his lap and said something that I will never forget. He looked me straight in the eyes and said,

“Hana, everything that God made valuable in the world is covered and hard to get to. Where do you find diamonds? Deep down in the ground,
covered and protected. Where do you find pearls? Deep down at the bottom of the ocean, covered up and protected in a beautiful shell. Where do you find gold? Way down in the mine, covered over with layers and layers of rock. You’ve got to work hard to get to them.”

He looked at me with serious eyes. “Your body is sacred. You’re far more precious than diamonds and pearls, and you should be covered too.”

Source: Taken from the book: More Than A Hero: Muhammad Ali’s Life Lessons Through His Daughter’s Eyes. (Author: his daughter HANA ALI).

IHOPE MY BEAUTIFUL SISTERS IN THIS GROUP CAN RELATE TO THIS AND ACT UPON IT!! BROTHERS PLEASE SHARE THESE GOOD WORDS WITH UR DAUGHTERS, SISTERS, AND OTHER MUSLIM WOMEN!!! As I always say: “Words from the heart often touch hearts”.

hajarahb@yahoo.co.uk

Naming Our Kids

Some people name their children after their own parents.This is to demonstrate love and filial respect for their departed ancestors.Or to perpetuate their memories,perhaps.We have quite a few people in Uganda,for example,who bear their grandfather’ s name.The Americans went one step ahead.They invented the frugality with names,creating serial names.Recycling names much before recycling became an ecological issue.You have a Henry Ford I,II,III and IV at last count.

The George Bushes are stuck at position # 2,with a Sr and Jr denoting the positions,unless someone decides to carry forward the family tradition sometimes in future.

It’s rumoured that the Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry, the real moneybags behind the Tata brand name (They own upwards of 60% of all Tata wealth; They’ve built all opulent palaces in Saudi Arabia, Muscat, Iraq and elsewhere) always name at least one offspring to honour an ancestor. So a Shappoorji will name his son Pallonji, and viceversa.(Perhaps our Ms Zareen Awari will care to confirm this).

But I wonder why people with exemplary contribution to History were single, lone bearers of their names? How come we don’t have an Archemedes, or Plato, or Chengiz Khan or Sir Isaac Newton, or even Einstein mark II?

And while we are on this, how come no daughter was ever named after her Mum?And of interest to our non-Muslim readers-Jesus (Nabi Issa in Islam,and mbph) had no earthly father. And because of him, all Muslims will be raised under their Mother’s names on the Final Day of Judgment, known as Qayamat.)If ever any of you come across a Zainab Jr or Marium Jr, please inform this writer. He’s interested academically, of course.

It was always the boys who wanted to shine in reflected glory of their illustrious fathers.
Never the daughters.Maybe a psychologist will find the reasons one day.

JABENDO RAHIM

—
“War is nothing but a  continuation of political intercourse, with a mixture of other means. Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”