Islamic Personalities
His
interpretive reading of Islam has contributed greatly to the articulation of
Islamic revivalist thought and has influenced Muslim thinkers and activists
from Morocco to Indonesia. His impact is evident in the exegesis of Sayyid Quṭb of Egypt, as well as in the ideas and
actions of Algerian, Iranian, Malaysian, and Sudanese revivalist activists.”
The movement he started was not a reaction to any immediate political scenario
he witnessed. Neither should it be seen as rise of “comparative fundamentalism”
of right wing ideologies, a general trend of the times he lived in. Instead,
his ideas and movement was a natural internal response by Muslim Ummah to
issues faced by it. ...
The Prophet
(PBUH) once said that Khadija was one of the four most remarkable women in the
world. As reported in Musnad of Imaam Ahmad Hadees 2663, he said, “The four
greatest women of mankind were: Bibi Khadija, Fatima bint Muhammad, Maryam bint
Emran and Asiya bint Muzahim (Pharaoh’s wife)....
"O son of
freed slaves, is this your justice that you keep your own daughters and slave
maids veiled while the daughters of the Prophet of Allah are being paraded from
place to place exposed." "You have dishonoured us by unveiling our
faces. Your men take us from town to town where all sorts of people, whether
they be residents of the hills or of riversides have been looking at us."
"The near as well as the remote ones, the poor as well as the rich, the
low as well as the high – all casting their glances at us while our position is
such that there is no male relative of ours to render us help or
support."...
“God is Al-Haq,
the Truth, the spirit is closer to God and therefore its connection with
reality is stronger, the soul is an intermediate reality and body is the least
real of all. When the body is given paramount importance, running after power
and pelf, the lowest egotistical levels of the soul, known as Nafs e Ammara,
become the centre. This is how the spirit and soul become corrupted.”...
Fatima al-Fihri
was a Muslim woman from Tunisia who founded the first known university more
than 1,000 years ago: the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco. Guinness
World Records acknowledges it as the oldest existing and continually operating
educational institution in the world.
Much of the information about al-Fihri’s early life is lost to time...
The Muslim
philosopher was born on Afshona in Uzebekistran on August 22, 980AD. By the age
of ten he had memorised the entire Quran, and by 18 he had become a qualified
physician. As a teenager he was fixated by Aristotle's Metaphysics, which he
read 40 times. He spent his life healing the rich and the poor, all the while
amassing an ever-growing mountain of knowledge....
At that time,
Muslims ruled from Armenia to Sindh, Central Asia, the whole of Arabia, India
and Eastern China. Nobody dared disobey Hazrat Umar’s (RA) orders. He was a
strict disciplinarian and sacked many influential and powerful personalities
such as Hazrat Saad bin Abi Waqas, Hazrat Khalid bin Wahid, Hazrat Umro bin
Al-Aas, Hazrat Mugira bin Shaba, Hazrat Haris bin Kaab, Hazrat Ghanam etc.
Alexander did not leave any good governing systems in place, whereas Hazrat
Umar (RA) established one of the best governance systems the world has ever
seen....
Manto
understood this and wrote about it much before Hitchens. He was totally above
religion, like so few of us can be even in our time. This gave him the ability
to put us all under a microscope and record our failings. He loved Indianness
because it was the only identity he had. His record of Bombay during Partition,
in two short essays, is a masterpiece that should be required reading in all
our schools....
And so, the people of the sub-continent remain divided, despite the fact that the majority of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and others never wanted partition in the first place. The key to peace and love in the region is to explain to people on both sides of the border the truth behind partition and the reality that it was the result of the selfish politics of a few leaders. It is time the region embraced Mashriqi’s ideology of unity, regardless of faith or colour. This is the key to bringing peace in the region and the world....
Something the
Qur’an and the Masnavi both have in common is that they are not books as we
normally think of books being written. Both originated as oral expressions, and
oral texts are different from written ones. Whereas written texts “set things
in stone”, laying words like bricks on paper, oral texts are more like jazz
standards: individual performers provide their own interpretation of familiar
songs. In the same way, oral texts are open and flexible....
He must close
the door of bounty and open the door of hardships; close the door of dignity
and open the door of humility; close the door of repose and open the door of striving;
close the door of sleep and open the door of vigilance; close the door of
wealth and open the door of poverty; and finally close the door of worldly
expectations and open the door of preparation for the next world....
“Normal people
can’t observe and think like we do and put it to pen. There has to be something
twisted somewhere in our minds to produce the kinds of things we have with our
pens. We do see the same things as others, but the window in a writer’s mind is
different. Manto was like that too,”...
In the morning,
Bishr asked God for forgiveness and swore to lead a life of piety and devoted
to God. He resolved to become an ascetic. At the moment of making sincere
repentance and turn towards God alone, Bishr was barefoot and never put on
shoes again. Some say, this was to remind him of that great moment in his life
that his heart opened to the knowledge of God. ....
That was an era
of cultural attainment and there were many incomparable poets in the Khilji
Sultanate but according to the famous historian Ziauddin Barni, “The
incomparable Amir Khusrau stands unequalled for the volume of his writings and
the originality of his ideals; for, while other great masters of prose and
verse have excelled in one or two branches, Amir Khusrau was conspicuous in
every department of letters....
Hazrat
Nizamuddin loved Khusrau and called him, ‘My Turk’. He is known to have said, “Khusrau is the
keeper of my secrets. And I shall not set foot in paradise without him. If
permissible by Islamic law, I would have willed that Khusrau be buried in the
same grave as me.”...
Tajush Sharia
says, "Attention O Islamic World, be warned against the Movement of
Destruction! In these times the movement of Daesh (“ISIS”) has become a great
challenge and grave danger to the countries of the Middle East, in particular
Saudi Arabia. Their danger is not restricted just to the Arab world, but
extends to all countries and peoples. This movement is only concerned with the
destruction of historical monuments and of the Islamic landscape, as is
witnessed in the lands of Iraq and Syria. They have transgressed in this matter
and treat Muslims as non-believing hostile combatants, as though they are
enemies-at-war and their lands hostile territories….”
Generations of
Indian Muslim scholars, from Shah Wali Allah to Allama Iqbal, have offered
mixed praise for Ibn Taymiyyah’s personality and works. Shaykh al-Islam Taqi
ad-Din ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1327) was a truly outstanding scholar in Islamic
history. He was a Mujaddid (reformer), a person who spent his entire life
making an effort to clarify and emphasize the essential teachings of Islam. At
the same time, he fended off political persecution and faced intellectual
opposition from movements inside and outside the Muslim community. The legacy
he left behind was one that has inspired Muslims in a many ways right up to our
present day.....
Prolific
Islamic scholar, Abul Ala Maududi accused Rahman of undermining established
Islamic beliefs and of belittling the role of the Ulema. Ayub was livid. “It is
quite clear that any form of research on Islam, which inevitably leads to new
interpretations, has no chance of acceptance in this priest-ridden and ignorant
society,” he had apparently thundered....
He
then remembered what the saint, abu Abdallah al-Murshidi had said: “You will
enter the land of India and meet there my brother Dilshad, who will deliver you
from a misfortune which will befall you there.” He also remembered the man’s
name, ‘joyous heart’, which when translated into Persian is Dilshad....
The specific
contours of Thanawi’s legal philosophy, psychology and theology that limit his
choices for seekers (Salik) in general and fatwa seeking masses in particular
to accommodate less ideal modes of living forced by modernity call for informed
analysis and critique in light of great Sufi Masters and jurists who embody
other less disciplinarian streams of thinking.
What needs to be emphasized is that Thanwi had much more optimistic view
of otherworldly prospects for sinning believers...
After
travelling to Makkah, Madina, southern Persia, Iraq, Turkmenistan and
Afghanistan, Ibn Battuta reached the Indian Subcontinent, where he travelled
from Sindh to the North West and then on to Delhi . At that time, Sultan
Ghiasuddin Tughlaq was the king. The king’s son, Mujahid Muhammad Shah
treacherously killed his father when the former returned from an expedition. He
took possession of the kingdom without opposition. His real name was Jawnah,
but when he became king he called himself Muhammad and took the ‘Kunyah’ name
of Abul Mujahid....
Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi, New Age Islam
Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi, New Age Islam
It should be remembered
that Allah Almighty has called Himself ‘Lord of the worlds’, while for the holy
Prophet (peace be upon him), He has used ‘Mercy for all worlds’. This tells us
that he whose Lord is Allah Almighty, the Prophet is mercy for him. Thus, his
mercy is absolute, complete, and in its entirety. It includes everything and it
is for everything.….
The Sufi mentor in this story was Dr Abdul Hai Arfi, himself a disciple of Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi. One of the many great contributions of Maulana Thanvi was that he reintroduced Islamic teachings regarding social relations and dealings with others as a religious issue. His message: You must become a good human being before you can ever become a good Muslim. This message destroys a disastrous and tragic misconception that reduces Islam to only the performance of the ritual acts of worship...
That night while sleeping, Ibn Battuta dreamt he was on the wings of a huge bird that flew in the direction of the ‘Qiblah’, then made towards Yemen, then eastwards, then south, and finally made a long flight towards the east, alighting in some dark and greenish country, where it left Ibn Battuta. He was astonished at the dream and thought to himself, “If the Shaikh shows me he knows of my dream, then he is all they say that he is.” After the afternoon prayers, the Shaikh revealed that he had knowledge of the dream. He said: “You shall make the Pilgrimage to Mecca and visit the tomb of the Prophet at al-Madinah, then you shall travel through the lands of al-Yaman and al-Iraq, the land of the Turks and the land of India....
The Muslim must become puritan in order to relive the supposed lost glory of Islam. For this, purging itself of all accretions and all traces of syncretism was to become the sine qua non of Indian Muslims. As a political project, this tradition continues to this day through the activities of Deobandis, the Ahle Hadees and even the Barelwis. More than anything else, Shah Waliullah’s writings seem to be a fatal recipe for the political future of Muslims in India. ...