Single Life As A Muslim – Shaykh Faraz Rabbani on Vimeo

Single Life As A Muslim – Shaykh Faraz Rabbani from Khalid Latif on Vimeo.

SeekersGuidance Islamic Knowledge Podcast @ iTunes (free!)
Ramadan Special: Daily Ramadan Reminders. Brief, inspiring reminders from the Qur’an & Sunna and the guidance of our scholars on making the most of his blessed month. (Don’t miss out.)

Ramadan Reminders (2): Fasting for Allah

We need to have the highest of intentions in our fasts–and not merely go through the motions of fasting. The best of intentions for fasting is to have a clear sense of fasting ‘for Allah.’ This reminder explores what it means to fast ‘for Allah,’ and explains the Prophetic hadith, related by Bukhari, in which Allah says, ‘All the actions of people are for them, except for fasting. Fasting is for Me and it is I who reward it.’

(Download this talk here)

SeekersGuidance Islamic Knowledge Podcast @ iTunes (free!)
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=303712260
Ramadan Special: Daily Ramadan Reminders. Brief, inspiring reminders from the Qur’an & Sunna and the guidance of our scholars on making the most of his blessed month. (Don’t miss out.)

Source:
http://seekersguidance.org/podcast/ramadan-reminders-2-fasting-for-allah

YouTube – ISNA Convention 2009 – Session 12A Part 4

MSA Program – New Beginnings: Mobilizing and Motivating a Generation – As Muslims in a tumultuous age, we must develop the methods and tools necessary to improve our communitys condition. How can we utilize our various individual strengths and approaches to jointly propel our community into a brighter era? What can we do today to energize and mobilize ourselves? How do we get ourselves moving? What are ways that we can ensure the continuity of our actions?

YouTube – Creating and Sustaining North American Muslim Scholarship – Yasir Qadhi & Faraz Rabbani

Creating and Sustaining North American Muslim Scholarship, a session with Yasir Qadhi and Faraz Rabbani at the 2007 MSA National Continental Conference.

This session will discuss and describe the current state of Islamic education in North America. What opportunities and institutions currently exist and how these institutions and resources can be cooperate to increase our ability to create viable North American Muslim Scholars. This session will also describe in detail where the gaps are and where North American Muslim communities should focus their resources to expand future opportunities.

Produced by www.wasatstudios.com

The Spiritual Retreat (i`tikaf) – SeekersGuidance Answers – Faraz Rabbani

Question: Could you please give some details regarding the rulings of i`tikaf?

Answer: The Spiritual Retreat (i`tikaf)

The Fiqh of I`tikaf (spiritual retreat)

Based on Shurunbulali’s Imdad al-Fattah, and other Hanafi texts

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate. May His abundant blessing and most perfect of peace be on His Beloved Prophet, the best of creation, and his family, companions and followers.

I`tikaf means ‘remaining’ somewhere.

The technical usage of the term is:

a) for men: to remain in the mosque, with an intention,

b) for women: to remain in their designated prayer area (musalla) at home, with intention, or at the mosque (though it is normally somewhat disliked for them to do so).

I`tikaf is a means of great reward. It says in the Fatawa Hindiyya,

“Its excellence is obvious, for the one make such a spiritual retreat:

- Has submitted their entire person to the worship of Allah Most High;
- seeks closeness;
- distances themselves from the worldly distractions that prevent one from proximity;
- drowning their entire time in actual or effective worship, for the basis of its legislation is to wait from one prayer time to the next prayer in congregation;
- it also makes the one is retreat resemble the angels who do not disobey the command of Allah and do what they are commanded, while glorifying Allah by night and day without tiring…” [1.212]

Review: ‘Empire of Illusion’ by Chris Hedges – Bethune on Books Books Reviews – Macleans.ca

Like Christopher Hitchens, in so many ways his opposite number, Chris Hedges occupies an isolated and occasionally lonely spot on the ideological spectrum, angering progressives as much as conservatives.

He may be a socialist and the author of American Fascists (2007), the title of which pretty much sums up what he thinks of the Christian right in his country.

But he’s also a religion-friendly guy—the son of a Presbyterian minister, and the possessor of both a master’s degree in theology and a firm belief that spiritual seeking is hard-wired in humans—a stance that provokes many on the militant atheist left. In fact, Hedges is as much a throwback as a revolutionary: an old-fashioned, passionate, moralist America-Firster. And none of that is meant as criticism.

Hedges is not likely to win a lot of new friends with his latest work, Empire of Illusion (Knopf). The “illusion” part of the title is made clear in Hedges’ savage assault on celebrity/pop culture that focuses on two soft, but richly deserving targets, pro wrestling and the porn industry.

The Way of Seekers

In this lecture, Shaykh Faraz discusses the characteristics of the way of knowledge, its virtues, and how it can be used to seek Allah (the Most Exalted) and Paradise. Abu Hurayra (Allah be pleased with him) relates that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said “Whoever pursues a path seeking knowledge, Allah facilitates for them a path to Paradise.” (Muslim, Tirmidhi, Abu Dawood, et al)

The following slides can be used by the listener to assist them in following along this podcast. (Download Slides)

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(1) Download this talk here. (right click and “save”) or

(2) Download podcasts directly onto your iPod by going to Seekers Guidance Islamic Knowledge Podcasts (iTunes)

An Islamic history is a vital part of Ethiopia’s richness – The National Newspaper

by HA Hellyer

‘We are sorry if you get woken up by the Muslim call to prayer in the morning.” Those were some of the first words I heard at my hotel when I arrived in Addis Ababa, on my first trip to Ethiopia. I confess – I was a bit confused. Call to prayer? In the capital of a “Christian country in a sea of Muslims”, as Ethiopia is sometimes called? Perhaps I was in a Muslim quarter of Addis Ababa that had been recently established?

No, the situation was far more complicated than that, and one about which I had a surprisingly limited awareness. Most non-Ethiopians, including the immediate neighbours of Ethiopia, also believe that Ethiopia is predominantly Christian. The more sophisticated might believe that there is a Muslim minority – and it was to learn about that population that drew me to Ethiopia in the first place. But it is not a minority. About 55 per cent of Ethiopia’s parliament is Muslim and representatives from the country’s Islamic community insist they are at least 50 per cent of the population. While the US State Department estimates that this number is a bit lower, Islam might actually be the religion with the most adherents in Ethiopia.

If there is any “Muslim quarter” in Addis, it must be an old one. Christianity was the first religion to arrive in Ethiopia – but only in the north of the country. Where the capital, Addis Ababa, is located, the area of Shawa, was the domain of a Muslim sultanate in the early 8th century. Most historical narratives portray Ethiopia’s as a Christian story. If Islam is even mentioned, it is associated with disconnected tribesman in the lowlands who battled Christian kingdoms in the highlands. But history is written by the powerful and now academics are rediscovering the Muslim history of this country of such noble heritage.