Where is it that we were together?

اللهم صلي على سيدنا محمد و على اليه واصحابه

عيد مبارك!

 

Each like a coal thrown from the fire.

God, yu tekem laef blong mi,
mi mi givim nao long yu.
back mi givim evride
blong leftemap nem blong yu.
(God, You take my life.
Me, I give it to you now.
I will give it to you everyday
To raise up your Name.)

God, yu tekem han blong mi
Blong givhan long nara man,
Mo yu tekem leg blong mi
Blong mi karem tok blong yu.

God, yu tekem voes blong mi
Blong mi presem yu oltaem,
Mo yu tekem maot blong mi
Blong mi talem tok blong yu.

God, ol mane tu blong mi,
Plis, yu tekemi mi blong yu
Mo yu tekem hed blong mi
Blong mi waes long wok blong yu.

Yu mekem tingting blong mi
I stap strong long yu oltaem.
Yu nomo yu king blong mi
Plis yu rul long laef blong yu.

God, mi laekem yu tumas,
Mbae yu king blong mi oltaem.
Evri samting ya blong mi
Mi mi givim nao long yu.

Imam Nawawi(r) on Talebearing

Imam Nawawi says:

Having summarily mentioned that talebearing (namima) is unlawful, with the evidence for this and a description of its nature, we now want to add a fuller explanation of it. Imam Abu Hamid Ghazali says, “Talebearing is a term that is usually applied only to someone who conveys to a person what another has said about him, such as by saying, ‘So-and-so says such and such about you.’ In fact, talebearing is not limited to that, but rather consists of revealing anything whose disclosure is resented, whether resented by the person who originally said it, the person to whom it is disclosed, or by a third party. It makes no difference whether the disclosure is in word, writing, a sign, nodding, or other; whether it concerns word or deed; or whether it concerns something bad or otherwise. The reality of talebearing lies in divulging a secret, in revealing something confidential whose disclosure is resented. A person should not speak of anything he notices about people besides that which benefits a Muslim to relate or prevents disobedience. Anyone approached with a story, who is told, ‘So-and-so says such and such about you,’ must do six things:

(1) disbelieve it, for talebearers are corrupt, and their information is unacceptable,

(2) tell the talebearer to stop, admonish him about it, and condemn the shamefulness of what he has done;

(3) hate him for the sake of Allah Most High, for he is detestable in Allah’s sight, and hating for the sake of Allah Most High is obligatory;

(4) not think badly of the person whom the words are supposedly from, for Allah Most High says, ‘Shun much of surmise’ (Koran 49:12);

(5) not let what has been said prompt him to spy or investigate whether it is true, for Allah Most High says ‘Do not spy’ (Koran 49:12);

(6) and not to do himself what he has forbidden the talebearer to do, by relating it to others.”

(ibid 471-72)

[Taken from “The Reliance of the Traveler]

Shahr Safar al-Khayr Mubarak!

We have reached the month of Safar.

It is prescribed to perform the following throughout the month:

Every day in addition to any recitations already being carried out:

1. Ashadu an la ilaha ill’ Allah wa ashadu anna Muhammadan ‘abduhu wa rasuluhu (saws) – three times

2. Astaghfirullah (300 times).

3. Give sadaqah (charity) daily for the sake of Allah Almighty with the intention of lifting away afflictions and misfortunes.

4. Surat Al-Fil (seven times)

5. Ayat al-Kursi (7 times).

It is a good practice, and that of Grandshaykh ‘Abdullah al-Fa’iz al-Daghestani, to sacrifice a lamb (qurban) for the sake of Allah Almighty on the 27th of Safar.
from Futuhat al-Haqqaniyya by Shaykh Muhammad ‘Adnan Kabbani

Prophetic medicine cures cancer

from a talk by Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani

Allah made for every sickness a remedy. We must not accept that there any sickness without remedy. The Prophet Muhammad mentioned that for every sickness there is a cure. This is the Prophet to whom Allah gave the power of Isra’a and M’iraj (the Night Journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and then the Heavenly Ascension to the Divine Presence) to go to the Presence of Allah. It was a miraculous event that many did not at first accept until the Prophet gave them proof, telling them what he had seen on the road to masjid al-aqsa in Jerusalem. He told them about the caravans that were due to arrive in Mecca, and they then immediately believed him as no one would know such detail except one who was there. The Prophet was sent by Allah as a mercy, a rahma, to humanity. Every mercy therefore falls under the mercy of the Prophet: health is a mercy, wealth is a mercy, to be in a good position in this life is a mercy, to be in good standing in the hereafter is a mercy, even showers of rain (rahma in Arabic) or snow are mercies. All of this mercy that’s coming, Allah put in the hearts of our master Muhammad and his family, because his family is his blood and his blood is holy. So the one to whom Allah bestowed His Mercy knows what kind of remedy will help against every sickness.

I witnessed many illnesses cured by the remedies prescribed by both my shaykh Abdallah al-Fa’iz al-Daghestani and Grandshaykh Muhammad Nazim al-Haqqani. These cures come from the Prophet: it is prophetic medicine that so many people are using today under the names “alternative medicine” or “Chinese medicine”.

Real seclusion bears fruit. A real seclusion is not one that you demand, but one that is demanded of you: where the skaykh calls you out of the blue and says, “You, go to seclusion.” When you are in such a seclusion and training well, becoming more experienced, every sickness comes to you itself and says, “I am this type of sickness and the remedy for me is this.” According to the level of the one performing the seclusion, there will be prescriptions coming from heavenly sources for many difficult medical situations.

One of the most important sicknesses that people are facing today is cancer. I heard, witnessed, and saw from my shaykh (these are three distinct levels) that cancer can be cured and eliminated from a patient, but the patient must accept what they have to do. My sister was a gynecologist, and she had cancer. As a doctor she wasn’t able to accept anything other than what she’d studied. She went to Shaykh Nazim in the late eighties to speak with him about her case. He told her not operate. As a doctor, she insisted on it- she did the operation on her breast and lived 15 years before passing away. My auntie, who was in her early 50s, also had a cancer. She went to Shaykh Nazim and Granshaykh Abdallah for advice. Her doctors had already decided that she needed to have an operation. The night before the operation was to occur, we went to grandshaykh’s house. This was in the 1970s. He told us to take her out of the hospital, that if she didn’t do the operation she would have another 30 years of life. That night we went back to Beiruit and removed her from the hospital. The next morning they were searching for her, not knowing what had happened. She ended up living another 30 years, passing away at age 85. Meanwhile, my sister went through with her operation and lived only another 15 years.

Shaykh Nazim is carrying knowledge of Prophetic medicine that he has inherited by his spiritual connection with the Prophet through the chain of saints. He explained that there is a dormant cancer in every human being. It doesn’t awaken except in certain patients. If we touch the cancer, it will go crazy. Instead of going slowly, if we touch it with a knife the cancer will go wild and spread. He said the best thing is to take onion juice. The Prophet said that although onion and garlic have a bad smell, they are cures for 70 different illnesses that cannot be cured by any other means. So people of Allah recommend onion juice.

Just this past weekend, I was in New York. One of the students brought a lady to me, saying that this was the lady who had cancer before and, thanks be to Allah, she’d been cured. A year before I was in New York, and they had brought to me this lady saying that she had a tumour in her head. She had a child. I told her to drink onion juice. I also read surat al-fatiha (the first chapter of the Koran) seven times onto some water on behalf of Shaykh Nazim, telling her to drink it. One week later she had an x-ray at the hospital and the tumour was gone. It’s not because I read or she took the onion juice, it’s because she believed that it could happen. She believed in Allah and she believed in the Prophet. So a year later I saw her again, and she had been cancer free for the whole time with no operation and no chemotherapy. My recommendation for people with this problem is to take onion juice and to read surat al-fatiha seven times on water, or coffee for example, and drink it. They could alternatively read fatiha seven times and blow on themselves. If they are not able, someone else can read fatiha for them.

May Allah give us healing, shif’a, and give those who are suffering from this sickness healing also, especially Shaykh Nazim`s followers. May Allah make it easy on everyone. He is al-Shafi (The Healer). Ya Rabbi (Oh Lord), You are the One that Cures, there is no one else, we are coming to you, requesting through our master Muhammad and through your saints. We are weak and sinful servants, but we are coming to you. Where else is there to go? Your door is the one people can come to. We are coming to your door asking you to cure every human being, especially those sufferers who have children- to give them happiness in their lives. And to us also, and to our children. Extend our lives to see our master the Mahdi and our master Jesus, for that will be the best time- the golden time. We are asking that Allah will accept from all of us, for there are children here and their supplication is accepted. May Allah for the sake of the saints, our master Muhammad, and ahl bayt (the family of the Prophet) accept from us. Bi hurmati l-habib bi hurmati l-fatihah (by the sanctity of the beloved, by the sanctity of surat al-fatihah)

what men live by

‘We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death.’ — I Epistle St. John iii. 14.
‘Whoso hath the world’s goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither with the tongue; but in deed and truth.’ — iii. 17-18.
‘Love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.’ — iv. 7-8.
‘No man hath beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abideth in us.’ — iv. 12.
‘God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him.’ — iv. 16.
‘If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?’ — iv. 20.

A SHOEMAKER named Simon, who had neither house nor land of his own, lived with his wife and children in a peasant’s hut, and earned his living by his work. Work was cheap but bread was dear, and what he earned he spent for food. The man and his wife had but one sheepskin coat between them for winter wear, and even that was worn to tatters, and this was the second year he had been wanting to buy sheep-skins for a new coat. Before winter Simon saved up a little money: a three-rouble note lay hidden in his wife’s box, and five roubles and twenty kopeks were owed him by customers in the village.

i want to rock and roll all night…

In an imaginary but psychologically emotion-laden domain, the listener who
remembers a hit song will turn into the song’s ideal subject, into the person for
whom the song ideally speaks. At the same time, as one of many who identify
with that fictitious subject, that musical I, he will feel his isolation ease as he
himself feels integrated into the community of “fans.” In whistling such a
song he bows to a ritual of socialization, although beyond this unarticulated
subjective stirring of the moment his isolation continues unchanged… The
comparison with addiction is inescapable. Addicted conduct generally has
a social component: it is one possible reaction to the atomization which, as
sociologists have noticed, parallels the compression of the social network.
Addiction to music on the part of a number of entertainment listeners would
be a similar phenomenon.

from Theodor Adorno

you can catch me at the club…

If exposed long enough to the tomtoms and the singing, every one of our
philosophers would end by capering and howling with savages. Assemble a
mob of men and women, treat them to amplified band music, bright lights,
and in next to no time you can reduce them to a state of almost mindless
subhumanity. Never before have so few been in a position to make fools,
maniacs, or criminals of so many.

from The Devils of Loudun by Aldus Huxley (1952)

(mis)education

Physiology and psychology afford fields for scientific technique which
still await development. Two great men, Pavlov and Freud, have laid the
foundation. I do not accept the view that they are in any essential conflict, but
what structure will be built on their foundations is still in doubt. I think the
subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology…. Its
importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods
of propaganda. Of these the most influential is what is called “education.”
Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the press, the cinema, and
the radio play an increasing part…. It may be hoped that in time anybody will
be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and
is provided by the State with money and equipment.
…The subject will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under
a scientific dictatorship… The social psychologists of the future will have a
number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods
of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will
soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second,
that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of
ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective.
Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid
taste for eccentricity. But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these
maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make
children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make
them believe it is dark gray.
…Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined
to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its
convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every
government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able
to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.

from The Impact of Science on Society by Bertrand Russell (1951)

butchers, nightwatchmen and donkey-drovers

But for the much greater number of scholars whose expertise has not reached such dizzying heights, it may be possible to become a mujtahid fi’l-madhhab, that is, a scholar who remains broadly convinced of the doctrines of his school, but is qualified to differ from received opinion within it.[45] There have been a number of examples of such men, for instance Imam al-Nawawi among the Shafi’is, Qadi Ibn Abd al-Barr among the Malikis, Ibn Abidin among the Hanafis, and Ibn Qudama among the Hanbalis. All of these scholars considered themselves followers of the fundamental interpretative principles of their own madhhabs, but are on record as having exercised their own gifts of scholarship and judgement in reaching many new verdicts within them.[46] It is to these experts that the Mujtahid Imams directed their advice concerning ijtihad, such as Imam al-Shafi’i’s instruction that ‘if you find a hadith that contradicts my verdict, then follow the hadith’.[47] It is obvious that whatever some writers nowadays like to believe, such counsels were never intended for use by the Islamically-uneducated masses. Imam al-Shafi`i was not addressing a crowd of butchers, nightwatchman and donkey-drovers.

from “UNDERSTANDING THE FOUR MADHHABS: the problem with anti-madhhabism“ by Abdal Hakim Murad

Of course, sitting alone, we are laughing out loud.