Mullah Nasruddin and his stories

By way of a fortuitous accident I stumbled upon this website ; you can read some very interesting, inspiring and thought provoking stories by the famous Mullah Nasruddin. Below I am copying out one that I particularly liked.

Peace

Humble (retold by Nasruddin)

My beloveds, I remember a time long ago when I was still a Mulla. I lived in a small town, just big enough for a real mosque, with a beautiful mosaic wall. I remember one evening, we had finished our prayers. The stars were clear and bright, and seemed to fill the sky solidly with lights. I stood at the window, gazing at the lights so far away, each one bigger than our world, and so distant from us across vast reaches of space. I thought of how we walk this earth, filled with our own importance, when we are just specks of dust. If you walk out to the cliffs outside the town, a walk of half an hour at most, you look back and you can see the town, but the people are too small to see, even at that meager distance. When I think of the immensity of the universe, I am filled with awe and reverece for power so great.

I was thinking such thoughts, looking out the window of the mosque, and I realized I had fallen to my knees. “I am nothing, nothing!” I cried, amazed and awestruck.

There was a certain well-to-do man of the town, a kind man who wished to be thought very devout. He cared more for what people thought of him than for what he actually was. He happened to walk in and he saw and heard what passed. My beloveds, I was a little shy at being caught in such a moment, but he rushed down, looking around in the obvious hope someone was there to see him. He knelt beside me, and with a final hopeful glance at the door through which he had just come, he cried,

“I am nothing! I am nothing!”

It appears that the man who sweeps, a poor man from the edge of the village, had entered the side door with his broom to begin his night’s work. He had seen us, and being a man of true faith and honest simplicity, his face showed that he entertained some of the same thoughts that had been laid on me by the hand of Allah (wonderful is He). He dropped his broom and fell to his knees up there in a shadowed corner, and said softly,

“I am nothing…I am nothing!”

The well-to-do man next to me nudged me with his elbow and said out of the side of his mouth,

“Look who thinks he’s nothing!”

Imran Khan on Islam

For those of you who are die hard Imran Khan fans .. this is heartening Audio

Arguments for the existence of God

Here is a link to a question and answer session with Imam Zaid. The first question deals with proofs for the existence of God. This topic has come up in many conversations with friends .. I refer you to those who know well Link

Know your enemy taken from Imam Zaid’s site

Imam Ahmad b, Sahl, May God have Mercy on him, mentioned, “Your enemies are four: The World, whose weapon is the people, and whose prison is isolation; Satan, whose weapon is satiation, and whose prison is hunger; The undisciplined soul, whose weapon is sleep, and whose prison is night vigil; and vain inclinations, whose weapon is speech, and whose prison is silence.”

Original source

Call for Papers

Muslim Youth: Challenges, Opportunities & Expectations

Organised Jointly: AMSS UK and the University of Chester.

Venue: Chester University, UK, 15-17 August 2008

The modern world presents a series of complex, conflicting scenarios and
possibilities for young people and in particular young Muslims. Many
Muslim societies display a “youth bulge”, where more than half of their
populations are under the age of 25, a demographic reality mirrored in
Muslim communities living in the West.  An increasingly globalised
western culture is rapidly eroding traditional ideas about society, from
the family to the state. At the same time, rampant materialism is
creating a culture of spiritual emptiness in which demoralisation and
pessimism easily find root. For young Muslims these challenges are
compounded by a growing sense of alienation as they face competing
ideologies and divergent lifestyles. Muslim youth are often idealised as
the “future of Islam” or stigmatised as rebelling against their parental
values and suffering “identity crises”. These experiences can produce
both positive and negative reactions, from intellectual engagement,
social interaction and increasing spiritual maturity to emotional
rejectionism, immersion in narrow identity politics and violent
extremism. However, it is clear that the optimism of most young Muslims
is best nurtured in an environment of opportunity, where ambitions and
aspirations can exist as an achievable reality. But at the social and
political levels, opportunity crucially depends on the existence of both
equality and inclusivity, as well as the vision and determination within
the community and the establishment to tackle educational
underachievement. This conference seeks to discuss the central issues
currently facing young Muslims both locally and globally and seeks to
engage with academics, educationalists, psychologists, social
commentators, youth work practitioners and interested institutions and
organisations at the national and international levels.

We invite papers that address but are not limited to the following
themes:

Contexts

·        Classical and modern understandings of youth in Islam

·        Theorising Muslim Youth

·        Contrasting Muslim youth experiences in majority and minority
Muslim societies

Challenges

·        Globalisation of Western consumer youth cultures

·        Detraditionalisation and secularisation

·        Reconciling competing demands from  ‘home, school, street, and
mosque’

·        Alienation, marginalisation and discrimination

·        Social problems and cultural taboos

·        Educational underachievement

·        Over-emphasis on a narrow range of occupations

·        Issues of well-being and mental health, e.g.
happiness/depression, optimism/pessimism, meaningfulness/nihilism,

·        Disconnection of urban youth from  the natural world

·        Youth and anti-social behaviour

·        Identity, belonging and loyalty

·        Vulnerability to violent and extremist ideologies

Opportunities

Reclaiming authentic Islamic spirituality and human values

Hybridised youth identities

Youth as agents of positive change and improvement in society as a
whole, through:

a)     Proposing constructive solutions instead of being perceived as “a
problem”

b)     responsible civic engagement

c)      building networks with people of goodwill from all communities

d)     advocating and promoting social and economic justice, ethical
business, creative philanthropy, stewardship models of management,
protection of the envie)     achieving excellence in professions which influence public
opinion and public policy (e.g. the media)  and create future opinion
formers and thought leaders (e.g. education at all levels)

f)       becoming role models in caring professions (e.g. health care)

g)     driving and articulating key research on social issues

Visibility and activism of young Muslim women

Advancement of holistic education to nurture full range of human
potential amongst young people – intellectual, aesthetic, physical,
moral and spiritual

Reconnecting with nature and the countryside

Re-animating an Islamic conception of beauty

Emerging youth cultures, e.g. ‘Islamic Cool’ i.e. Nasheed & Rap

Development of new types of religious identity

Ground breaking service based projects and educational initiatives

Abstracts

We invite submissions for 20 minute presentations. Submissions should
not have been published previously as selected papers will be included
in a Conference proceedings publication.

Please submit a 200 word abstract of the paper with an application form
to the following e-mail: m.seddon@chester.ac.uk by 15th June 2008.

Decisions on which papers will be included in the conference program
will be announced by the organizers by the end of July, and the
information will be sent by e-mail. Selection of the papers will be made
on the basis of quality and relevance to the conference themes.

Sadek Hamid

Muslim Youth Work Programme Leader
Department of Theology & Religious Studies
University of Chester
Parkgate Road
Chester
CH1 4BJ

01244 511 031/07947 792 784

http://www.chester.ac.uk/trs/index.html

Excellent talk by Shaykh Abdul Hakim Murad

Read transcript here

A beautiful story from the lives of the Sahabah

Nu’ayman ibn ‘Amr: ”I Am a Free Man!”

Qisas.com

A report given by Imam Ahmad from Umm Salamah, that Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) went to do business in Busra, and with him were Nu’ayman and Suwaybit ibn Harmalah (may Allah be pleased with them), both of whom had been present at Badr. Suwaybit was in charge of food on the journey, and Nu’ayman said to him, “Feed me!” Suwaybit said, “Not until Abu Bakr comes.”..

Nu’ayman was a fun-loving man with a sense of humour, so he went to some people who had brought livestock with them, and said, “Will you buy a sturdy Arab slave from me?” They said, “Yes.” He said, “He has a big mouth, and he may tell you that he is a free man. If that means that you do not want to take him, then forget the matter, and do not cause trouble for me with him.” They said, “No problem, we will buy him.” So they bought him for ten young she-camels. Nu’ayman brought the animals back, and told the people: “There he is!” Suwaybit said: “I am a free man!” They said, “He has already told us all about you,” and put a rope around his neck and led him away. Then Abu Bakr came, and was told what had happened. He and his companions went and returned the animals and took Suwaybit back. They told the Prophet (pbuh) what had happened, and he and his Sahabah would laugh about the story for a year afterwards.

Age of Al-Sayyida Aisha When She Married the Prophet Muhammad (peace and mercy of God be upon him)

A very thorough article.

John Gray on The atheist delusion

Read Full article here

Book Review - Hungry Tide

The Hungry Tide, Amitav Ghosh

This is a beautifully crafted novel, weaving together characters far apart in space and time in a story spanning little over a week and based in the ‘tide country’, the name by which Ghosh refers to the Sundarbans, the settled islands off the coast of Bangladesh. The central characters, Piya, an American scientist of Indian origin, Kanai, the successful owner of a translating service in Calcutta and Fokir, an illiterate fisherman who lives in the tide country, in the tradition of great novels, find their paths crossing serendipitously time and again. Piya comes to the tide country to observe the habits of one of its inhabitants, the ‘Irrawaddy dolphin’ as part of her research work. Kanai, meanwhile, finds himself summoned by his aunt, Nilima, who runs a welfare organization in the tide country, to read a manuscript her late husband, Nirmal had left behind for Kanai. It is from the perspective of these two characters, Piya and Kanai, that the story is told but it is the taciturn and indecipherable Fokir who is at the heart of it. Fokir, a married fisherman, plies the waters with his son, whom Fokir encourages to play truant and catch crabs along with himself. He is imbibed in the folklore of the tide country and well-versed in the syncretised tradition of Bon-Bibi.

Piya first crosses Fokir’s path when she is in trouble with some Forest Department toughs aboard a motor boat in the tide country. Accidentally thrown overboard into the turgid waters, she finds herself rescued by Fokir. From then on begins a strange and unlikely romance, unspoken and perhaps even unacknowledged, between the two who cannot even converse with one another yet due to their professions have a bond which makes their causes common. Once Fokir takes her to the island of Lusibari, Piya decides to enlist his invaluable knowledge of the tide country waters and marine life in her observation project. She finds refuge with Nilima, of whom she has heard from Kanai, the one time that they briefly met on the train from Calcutta to Canning.

Kanai, meanwhile, after having met and extended an invitation to Piya, to whom he is attracted, to stay at his aunt’s while she is in the tide country, reaches his aunt’s home on the island of Lusibari. He begins to read the manuscript left by his uncle, Nirmal, an idealistic leftist professor. Kanai is led into a world of the past, shortly before Nirmal’s death, when the latter began to take interest in the island of Morichjapi and the young woman, Kusum, who was once Kanai’s childhood playmate. Nirmal’s interest in both had to do with his left-leanings as Morichjapi is illegally settled by a group of poor and landless people, including Kusum. Nirmal, after his retirement, began to take a great interest in these people’s affairs, hoping, at the end of his life, to kindle the fire of revolution once.

Kanai and Piya meet at Nilima’s house and Kanai tries to woo her, to little avail. He also hears of her encounter with Fokir from Fokir’s wife, Moyna. Moyna is an ambitious woman driven to educate herself and her son to get ahead in a modernizing world, in contrast to her husband, Fokir, who is content to just fish, as his ancestors have done. Moyna, upon hearing that Piya wants to hire Fokir for her project is immediately and simultaneously jealous and joyous. This jealously seems to infect Kanai too and he suggests that he shall go with Piya and Fokir on the expedition to act as the translator between the two.

The fateful expedition that ensues brings together the various strands of the story in a manner both satisfying and heart-rending. The book is replete with evocative descriptions of tide country scenery and traditions, colonial history and the Irrawaddy dolphins; while simultaneously the writer has the gift to leave unwritten what is better left to the reader’s imagination. The book raises provocative questions about modern and traditional societies, revolution and social work and language and its limits. All in all the book was an extremely fulfilling read and the author of this review highly recommends it.