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Benedicte Cave Maledictionem

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بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ The following was taken from “ Benedicte cave maledictionem ,” “Benedict Beware of Malediction!” by Shaykh Abu Faydhan Faridi Muhammad Harun Riedinger, and published in Women’s Own, in the October 2006 issue.   Once again, a potentially heavy thunderstorm is building up in the skies over the Muslim world.   This time not caused by the profane vulgarities of an ignorant cartoonist, but by the insensible remarks of someone who should have known better.   To set the record straight, in the related issue, the Pontiff himself actually did not make the derogatory remarks about Islam, and jihad , which he is being decried for by Muslim leaders all over the world, but “only” quoted someone else’s remarks, remaining totally non-committal about them himself – or at least giving this impression …   The situation is somewhat like this: A teacher says in class that he read somewhere that someone had accused an ancestor of one of his stu...
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The Sharing Group Discussion: Is Swalah al-Khusuf a Superstition?

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بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Brother Naushad Omar posted, on The Sharing Group, on the 26 th September 2015: “Some lady on Facebook said that there will be a lunar eclipse on the 28 th September, and the Prophet ( s.a.w. ) said, according to Swahih al-Bukhari , that we must hasten to make two raka’at of swalah .   My response was: It is not necessary to make swalah now for an eclipse, since we are not superstitious anymore.   The Jahilliyah Arabs were superstitious because they had all kinds of weird beliefs about comets, eclipses and other heavenly aberrations.   Prophet Muhammad ( s.a.w. ) advocated swalah to wean the Arabs off this superstition.   It is totally unnecessary and weird that we make swalah now for eclipses.   Rather make swalah for the wars, poverty, corruption and mass migrations afflicting the ummah .”   Brother Terence Helikaon Nunis : That is not true.   Are you saying that for 1,400 years, we have performed a s...
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Brief Biography of Imam al-Mugits Husayn ibn Manswur al-Hallaj (q.s.)

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بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ This is the story of Imam al-Mugits Husayn ibn Manswur al-Hallaj ( q.s. ), who was born in Madina al-Bayda, a little village in the ancient province of Fars, in southern Persia, in the year 224 A.H./857 CE, two years before his shaykh, Imam Abu al-Qasim al-Junayd ibn Muhammad al-Baghdadi ( q.s. ).   He grew up in Wasith and in Tustar, where the cultivation of cotton was the main occupation of most of the people.   His father was a cotton-carder from which he gained his name of “ al-hallaj ” - one who cards cotton.   Even when he was a young child, Imam al-Hallaj ( q.s. ) felt drawn towards a spiritual life, and at the age of sixteen he attached himself to Imam Abu Muhammad Sahl ibn ‘Abdullah at-Tustari ( q.s. ), whom he accompanied when he moved from Tustar to Baswra, in ‘Iraq.   He served this shaykh for two years and then, when he was eighteen years old, he left him, and went to Baghdad.   The young Imam al-Hallaj (...
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