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In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate 25 June 1995 Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Ukraine: Greetings of Peace. My friend Usama al-Majdhub of Damascus called this morning and asked me to answer a question he had heard from some people in the Ukraine. He is flying to Kiev tomorrow, and wanted to pick up the answer tonight. To introduce myself, I am an American living in Jordan who converted from Christianity to Islam some years ago. My thoughts on this subject are many,

When life is reduced to the size of a small screenNine years ago at the Cairo Suhba we said, “The Internet is death.” The repeated use of purposeless websites bends the fitra out of shape. For some people, their fitra bends so much it becomes irreversible. It’s just not possible to straighten them out. It was many years ago that Sheikh Yunus remarked to me about the dunya, “When it dominates, it takes captive.” We might say the same about the Internet. It too takes the human heart, spirit, and b

A few days ago, a man climbed to the rooftop of his apartment block in Spain. Perched up high, he called out, attracting the attention of other residents stuck at home under Spanish 'Stay in Place' regulations. People appeared on their balconies to hear what the man had to say. Our man on the rooftop was not there to lecture. He was a fitness instructor who proceeded to do simple exercises, such as jumping jacks, for people on their balcony to follow along. An unusual fitness class had begun. Ev

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate (13) The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “When two vituperate each other, [the sin of] what they say is borne by the one who first began, as long as the one wronged does not transgress [the bounds of merely defending himself, by answering back with worse]” (Muslim, 4.2000: 2587. S). And when a group of Jews covertly cursed the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) by using a play on the words “as-Salamu ‘ala

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate The Fiqh of Islamic Behavior and Character 1. It is of the sunna to be afraid for one’s past, one’s state at death, for calamities, and for treachery and disgrace. It is of the sunna to be patient and steadfast in worship, in blessings, in tribulations, and in divine punishments in one’s body, reputation, family, or money. It is of the sunna to have firm patience in avoiding sins, and to make up for one’s past misdeeds. 2. It is

The Twenty-First Century Stress Syndrome James L. Wilson Hypoadrenia is a range of debilitating symptoms that are only too familiar to many people. It is known by many names including neurasthenia, adrenal apathy, subclinical hypoadrenia, and adrenal fatigue. The condition has been recognized, written about, and treated for over a hundred years, but is now generally not taught in medical schools, becoming a problem invisible to modern medicine. In contrast, fifty years ago it was more likely

Oliver James Over the past several years British psychologist Oliver James has observed a virus he has termed affluenza spread through the English-speaking world. Affluenza is no ordinary illness. It targets the mind and destroys one’s emotional well-being. It can destroy friendships and marriages, leave one lonely and exhausted, and ruin childhoods. It makes for selfish, vindictive people, who are prone to depression and anxiety, which in extreme cases leads to hospitalization. And it trigge

A New Way of Life David Servan-Schreiber (d. 2011) David Servan-Schreiber sensed something wasn’t quite right a year after his thirtieth birthday. A professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, he felt his brain didn’t work. Eventually he was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor. This type of cancer is rare with a poor prognosis. People often survive less than a year, even after aggressive treatment. Being a medic he asked what he could do to fight the disease. Th

The emerging pandemic of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes in the Indian subcontinentBiryani used to be food of nawabs and Sultans. It was the food of occasional festivals. It was never the food of everyday life. Some 12,000 years ago India was very different. The subcontinent was transitioning from a hunter-gather society to an agrarian, neolithic culture. Many parts of the country that are now desert were thriving agricultural areas where barley and eventually wheat were grown. These grains

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate al-Hikam al-‘Ata'iyya Infinitude is the native land from whence Allah has created the soul, then summoned it again upon the tongue of His messengers (Allah bless them and give them peace) from its exile. This is the first of a series of articles the interpreter has been asked to write on "traditional Islamic spirituality," a science that deals with answering this summons, lifting the heart from the narrowness of the self to the limitlessn

A boy sits hunched over his computer playing a video game. His reactions are fast and his motivation high. His brain is working overtime, and he sits still for hours on end. He does not appear to have an attention deficit disorder, as his concentration is total. However, since kindergarten he has been on drugs such as Adderall, Ritalin, and Concerta. He has a friend across town who is equally intelligent and has not been medicated, but his parents and teachers are not happy. Even the girls in

Preliminaries Some forty years ago a theory that a growing tumor could be “starved to death” by cutting off its blood supply was presented in the New England Journal of Medicine. It was met with skepticism, ridicule, and dismissal. This theory was called anti-angiogenesis. Today there are twelve anti-angiogenic drugs on the market for cancer treatment, with twenty-six more in the final stages of human testing, and another hundred-plus in human trials. Every major pharmaceutical company has an

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate 21 October 1997 Dear Sidi Hamza, As-Salamu 'alaykum wa rahmatu Llahi wa barakatu. I was asked about copyrights at the Shafi'i fiqh lesson at last winter's Toronto din intensive. The answer I gave was that copyrights are an issue differed about between the sheikhs I have studied with. Sheikh 'Abd al-Wakil Durubi (Allah have mercy on him) said that they had no basis in Sacred Law. From this point of view, nothing prevents someone who h

How the Antivaccine Movement Threatens Us All Paul A. Offit Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania. Founding member of the Autism Science Foundation. More than 140 peer-reviewed papers on vaccination. Death, blindness, paralysis, and stunted growth were ever present in childhood until the latter half of the twentieth century. Let us begin by simply noting the number of children affected by

 In 1980 a group of patients were admitted into the prestigious Mayo Clinic in the United States. They reported vague symptoms of fatigue and pain under their right rib. Upon testing, doctors found inflammation in their liver. They found scarring in and around the liver. There was inflammation that stopped the liver working properly. There was severe liver damage, and there was a build-up of fat in the liver. This was the first time doctors had seen a damaged, fatty liver in people that was not

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and CompassionateINGREDIENTSApprox. 6 cups flour: 3 cups of very coarsely ground whole-wheat flour, 1 cup regular whole-wheat flour, and 2 cups pure oat bran1/2 teaspoon sea-salt1/3 cup olive oil2 cups water for mixing2 cups water for baking, applied to bread surface with a clean spongeINSTRUCTIONS Mix flours with salt in a mixing bowl. Mix oil and water and add to the flours. Form dough. Depending upon the flours, you may need to add more water, if the dough

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate      A cardinal principle of the tariqa is zuhd or nonattachment to other than Allah. One should always leave what does not concern one in this life or the next. Our sheikh used to repeat two verses of poetry by Imam al-Humaydi: The meeting of people will never give you anything but gibberish of useless gossip. So diminish your meeting of people, save to take knowledge or improve your condition. Masters say, "Increase in the physica

The Truth about Cell Phone Radiation, What the Industry Is Doing to Hide It, and What You Can Do to Protect Your Family Devra Davis At the height of the Cold War sailors would stand next to radar installations on newly commissioned naval ships in order to make themselves infertile. In 1956 one of England’s leading epidemiologists found that X-rays of pregnant women increased the risk of childhood cancer. She was pilloried—then the findings were confirmed some thirty years later. After World W

Breaking Free from the World of Excess John Naish Getting richer is no longer making us happier—if it ever did. Depression, self-harm, and suicide are on the rise. Families are splitting up. Children are increasingly pressured and some desperately unhappy. Success and happiness are now conditioned by job status, by the cars we drive, the brands we wear and consume, the loyalty cards we are admitted into, the airlines we travel on, or the neighborhood we live in. Success is determined by our s

For Men The Five Basic Exercises (5BX) fitness plan was developed for the R.C.A.F (The Royal Canada Air Force) as a progressive fitness training plan based on scientific principles to develop and maintain the physical fitness of their military personnel. The program has been widely adopted by the public. 5BX fitness training is designed to show you how to develop and hold a high level of physical fitness, regardless of where you may be located and can be carried out in limited space, without equ

Reviewing the Impacts of the Western Diet upon ImmunityIan A. MylesNutritional Journal 2014Mothers influence their child’s dietary preferences while their baby is still in their womb. The food that she enjoys during her pregnancy will shape whether her child eats his vegetables or gorges on high-sugar junk food. From the womb until the age of two, the child inherits his microbiota from his mother. The microbiota is huge amounts of bacteria and flora, that vastly outnumber human cells, and which

 Overcoming addiction – whether to smartphones, messaging, video watching, Internet surfing, gaming, pornography, drugs, or any of the world’s allurements – is to overcome the nafs. And the first thing the salik knows about the nafs is that it is easily fooled. For the spirit to rise, we use the intellect to rein in the ego.Never before in history have anonymity, convenience, and immorality come together so seamlessly as they do now. What was once only possible with effort and planning is now re

The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar—Your Brain’s Silent Killers David Perlmutter Remember that hot slice of toast dripping in butter you ate for breakfast? Perhaps it had Vegemite on. That bagel, that croissant, or those cereals you wolfed down. Think of the fragrance of coffee and freshly baked bread that you inhaled—two wonderful, wonderful aromas. Remember the anticipation, the delight, the contentment you experienced? Or the euphoric pleasure from eating a doughnut. This pl

I would respond by looking to see how traditional ulama or Islamic scholars have viewed it. For the longest period of Islamic history--from Umayyad times to Abbasid, to Mameluke, to the end of the six-hundred-year Ottoman period--Sufism has been taught and understood as an Islamic discipline, like Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir), hadith, Qur'an recital (tajwid), tenets of faith (ilm al-tawhid) or any other, each of which preserved some particular aspect of the din or religion of Islam. While

Question Is someone who has an idea that is kufr or “unbelief” thereby an “unbeliever”? Response The short answer, somewhat surprisingly, is “not necessarily.” In some cases such a person is, and in some not. Many people today read an expression labelled in books of Islamic law as kufr, and when they realize that some Muslim they know or have heard of has an idea like it, they jump to the conclusion that he is a kafir. Charging fellow Muslims with unbelief (takfir) is an enormity in the eyes of

 Not far from the Red Sea town of Marsa Alam, the road turns left toward the maqam of Imam Abul Hasan al-Shadhili. For the next seventy miles, there are a handful of cars, and the only inhabitants are a few Nubian families, housed in small shacks dotted by the roadside. The landscape is sparse. There’s just a few scrubs, while in the distance mountains rise up. The road is good, and after an hour the maqam is visible. The town used to be nonexistent. Now, there are two thousand people living the

No. The literal sense of being "in the sky" would mean that Allah is actually in one of His creatures, for the sky is something created. It is not permissible to believe that Allah indwells or occupies (in Arabic, hulul) any of His creatures, as the Christians believe about Jesus, or the Hindus about their avatars.  What is obligatory for a human being to know is that Allah is ghaniyy or "absolutely free from need" of anything He has created. He explicitly says in surat al-Ankabut of t

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate 14 July 1995  Dear Suleman 'Ali:; Thank you for your fax of 27 June 1995 which said, in part:  "Recently a pamphlet has been circulated around Oxford saying that evolution is synonymous with kufr and shirk. I myself am a biologist and am convinced by the evidence which supports the theory of evolution. I am writing to ask whether the Quranic account of Creation is incompatible with man having evolved. Are there any books which you w

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate Few would deny today that the millions of dollars spent worldwide on religious books, teachers, and schools in the last thirty years by oil-rich governments have brought about a sea change in the way Muslims view Islam. In whole regions of the Islamic world and Western countries where Muslims live, what was called Wahhabism in earlier times and termed Salafism in our own has supplanted much of traditional Islamic faith and practice.

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate I received a letter in Jordan not too long ago from a British Muslim, asking me questions about modern calls to replace traditional Islam with an ostensible "return to the way of the Salaf, or ‘early Muslims.’" When I answered one of these questions, I realized that many other people might be wondering the same thing, and thought that presenting the question to you tonight in a wider forum might be of greater benefit to the British

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate In response to numerous requests from around the world for definite guidelines, I shall here summarize the main adab to be observed by our Shadhili tariqa at the weekly Latifiyya gatherings, larger regional or national gatherings, other, family tariqa events, and our annual suhbas in the various lands. Latifiyyas (1) Hosts of Latifiyyas and all who attend should do their utmost to make everyone who comes welcome. It is a privilege to serv

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate By what one can gather from the press, the FBI and CIA have seemingly been unable to prove who precisely, if anyone, may have masterminded the attack earlier this month on the World Trade Center other than the immediate assailants, who are presumed to have been a number of young men from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and one from the United Arab Emirates. Whoever they were, the facts point to a number of inescapable conclusions. The planning

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate The following is an excerpt from the published manuscript of a new revision of the manual of the tariqa. It is copyright MMIX © Nuh Ha Mim Keller, and may not be reproduced in any form without written permission. Some has been drawn from traditional sources such as Imam Ghazali, while some is new. It has been excerpted here from manuscript as a stop-gap to answer some questions about marriage frequently received, and because the manual wil

 Ditching Google and FacebookAssalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah,In light of the recent trilogy of nasihahs that Sheikh Nuh read at the past three suhbas, which were based on a number of books and a lot of research by many authors on the dangers of unsafe and unethical Internet corporations, Sheikh Nuh has requested that an informative mail be announced via Zawiya Notices to the murids, with a direct request from the Sheikh that all murids follow- as soon as possible- the more precautional, more eth

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate October 1995 Dear Brother Isa Robert Martin:  Thank you for your letter of 10 August 1995 which read, in part:  . . . My question is not regarding the obligation to grow the beard and trim the mustache. This is clear from the statements of the Prophet (may Allah bless him and give him peace), the statements of the great Imams, and the practice of the early Muslims and righteous people up until the present day. My question is regardi

 It is a February evening in London and not yet late. A dense fog lies across the street, punctuated by a single lamp. Five friends climb into a black cab. One of the party leans back in his seat, staring transfixed at the rear window with a vacant eye. He reports that a giant Star of David is following the cab as it progresses down the street. His mouth moves up and down as if he were a goat.An hour passes, the party of friends become calm as they wind their way home. Their transport beckons an

Pamela Paul Pornography has become an epidemic. At least 66% of men aged eighteen to thirty-four indulge in porn; 41% of women have intentionally watched it online; 90% of teenagers who are regular internet users have viewed it; and prepubescents are being treated for pornography addiction. There are now over one-quarter of one billion pornographic websites in existence. We spend more on porn than on football, baseball, and basketball combined. $14 billion a year is spent in California alone.

The Re-Formers of Islam Excerpts - The Mas'ud QuestionsIbn Kathir and Ibn TaymiyaQuestions:Was Ibn Kathir considered to be part of Ahl al-Sunna by the orthodox community even though he was a student of Ibn Taymiya?Was Ibn Kathir’s Islamic faith (‘aqida) actually different than Ibn Taymiya’s? If so, on what points? (I will need references.) I know he differed on many fiqh issues, but that is because Ibn Kathir was a Shafi‘i scholar, one such difference being the Mawlid.Ibn Kathir’s tafsir (Qur’an

The Re-Formers of Islam Excerpts - The Mas'ud QuestionsImam Ash'ari Repudiating Asha'rismQuestion:The Salafis claim that Abul Hasan Ash‘ari formulated the Ash‘ari tenets of Islamic faith (‘aqida) while he was between the Mu‘tazila and Ahl al-Sunna, and that he later refuted his formulations and joined Ahl al-Sunna in the Hanbali madhhab before he died. Is there any truth in this? They say his last book, al-Ibana, contains the refutations. If not, how can I prove it to these people? They also say

The Re-Formers of Islam Excerpts - The Mas'ud QuestionsRe-forming Classical TextQuestion:As far as Wahhabi tamperings with classical texts goes, how widespread is this heinous crime? Can you give some serious examples of this?Answer:I do not know how widespread it is, but it certainly does exist. Of hard evidence that I have personally seen, there is the work that I am currently translating, Kitab al-adhkar [The book of remembrances of Allah] by Imam Nawawi. The text that Nawawi wrote in the Boo

The Re-Formers of Islam Excerpts - The Mas'ud QuestionsDawud al-Dhahiri and ibn HazmQuestion:Are the Hanbali Mujtahid Imams Dhahiri and Ibn Hazm considered Ahl al-Sunna?Answer:Dawud ibn ‘Ali ibn Khalaf Dhahiri of Isfahan (d. 270/883) and ‘Ali ibn Ahmad Abu Muhammad ibn Hazm (d. 456/1064) were not Hanbalis but Dhahiris. Whether they were mujtahids (qualified to issue expert Islamic legal opinion) is debatable, not only for reasons I will discuss, but also because little that was written by Dawud

The Re-Formers of Islam Excerpts - The Mas'ud QuestionsImam Ahmad ibn HanbalQuestion:Was Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal an anthropomorphist as is alleged by the Salafis? Can you provide me examples of the sayings of Imam Ahmad that show he did not hold the anthropomorphic ‘aqida of the neo-Salafis, as they claim?Answer:Regarding the question of whether Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241/855) was an anthropomorphist, this is something that has been asked since early times, particularly since someone forged an

The Re-Formers of Islam Excerpts - The Mas'ud Questions The Ijazas of Ibn Baz and al-AlbaniQuestion:The Salafis allege that both Ibn Baz and al-Albani have ijazas (authorizations of mastery of a book, etc. in Islamic knowledge from the scholar it was studied with) from great sheikhs. They say that al-Albani has an ijaza from some sheikhs in Syria, do you have any information on this?Answer:Our teacher in hadith, Sheikh Shu‘ayb al-Arna’ut, tells my wife and me that Sheikh Nasir al-Albani learned

The Re-Formers of Islam Excerpts - The Mas'ud Questions Haqiqat al-MuhammadiyyaQuestion:Many Pakistanis and people of the Naqshbandi tariqa (and maybe of others) consider the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) to be Nur Allah, the ‘Light of Allah’, and find it offensive that we call the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) bashar, a ‘human being’, even though the Qur’an states him to be so. I have also been made aware of a hadith in Tirmidhi that states that the prophets (upon

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate A Fasting Protocol for Northerly Latitudes Nuh Keller Ramadan takes place in any season in any land. Muslims living in Birmingham, England, and Oslo, Norway, asked me this year for a fiqh solution as to what time to begin fasting Ramadan each day when it occurs in the summertime, and there is no true dawn because of the persistence of twilight all night at their latitudes. The first thing to remember is that the difficulty is a temporar

The Epidemic of Heart Disease in the Indian Subcontinent The rich and noble history of Hyderabad has led the Indian government to recognize the city as one of the most important heritage sites in all India. Since medieval times the banquets and food of the Deccan have been legendary—perhaps second only to Lahore. Recently, however, Hyderabad has gained a new title: the diabetes capital of the world, with more diabetics as a percentage of population than anywhere. One in every six people above

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and CompassionateNuh Keller was born in 1954 and raised as a Roman Catholic in rural Washington State. He is a third-generation American of German ancestry on his father’s side, and German, Scottish, and Irish on his mother’s. During the 1970’s and 1980’s between his academic studies and work as a commercial fisherman in the North Pacific, he underwent a journey of reflection that culminated in his becoming Muslim. Nearly three decades later, he has become one

The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain John J. Ratey Despite Hollywood’s protestations to the contrary the American way of life, and all those who follow it, seem to be failing. The obesity rate stands at 65% and is spiraling out of control. Over 10% of the population now has Type 2 diabetes, a fully preventable disease, which is implicated in further health problems such as heart disease. The leading cause of disability in the United States and Canada is depression, ahead of

The Prophet, Allah bless him and give him peace, said, “The strong believer is better and more beloved to Allah than the weak believer, though there is good in both.” Strength carries many meanings. It can mean strength of character or having a strong faith. The twelfth-century Andalusian Imam Qadi Iyad writes that “strong believer” also refers to physical strength. It is physical strength that we want to say a few words on, to encourage all of you, men and women, and especially teenagers, to st

QUESTION Why does Allah allow suffering and evil? What is evil? RESPONSE Sheikh al-‘Alawi has said, “All the universe is Light, and the only thing that darkens it is the manifestation of the self in it.” Sheikh ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghouri, who met Sheikh al-‘Alawi, and related this to me, used to teach that the notions that affect our hearts come from one of four quarters. Notions of tawhid or the absolute Oneness of the Divine come from the All-merciful Himself; those of doing good come fr