This is funny

You know how people like to brag about their connections to the Prophet of Islam?

Well the Abbasid main slogan was that only the Bani Hashim has the right to leadership (political). They overthrew the Ummayad. One of their caliphs was Haroon al-Rashid, who has been popularized in the west with magical stories about his kingdom. The Abbasid descent from the line of Prophet's uncle, Abbas. There is nothing to brag here because Prophet had another uncle who has been eternally condemned in the Quran.

Anyway, I read a funny story about Haroon al-Rashid who tried to highlight (bragging) his connection to the Prophet via his dead uncle. Listen to the story below and see how Musa al-Kadhim (who was the 4th descendant of the Prophet) put him right to his place. The joke it a bit subtle.

Once Harun al Rashid was visiting Madina. He went to the mosque of the Prophet near his [Prophet] grave and said, My Salams to you O’cousin of our fathers. [This is a very disrespectful way to address the prophet because Muhammad, the messenger of God, is far greater than anyone from Banu Abbas].

Imam Musa [the seventh Imam of the Shia] was there. He saluted the grave of the Prophet with the words, My Salams to you O’our grand father. [see how Musa al-Kadhim retorted back highlighting his *superior* connection to Prophet and with a proper salam no less].

At this Al-Rashid was disconcerted and went away angry.

Reference

http://www.al-islam.org/kaaba14/10.htm

Mukhtar al-Taqafi from Reviving al-Islam blog

Reviving al-Islam blog has an interesting post about Mukhtar al-Thaqafi. al-Thaqafi is introduced as a member of Kaysaniyya (a Ghulat sect) based on the following source

When you research the life of al-Mukhtār bin Abī `Ubaydah al-Thaqafī you will see that he was one of the leaders of the Kaysāniyyah sect. The Kaysāniyyahs were those who believed that Muhammad al-Hanafiyyah was the Imām after his father. The sect was called Kaysāniyyah because al-Mukhtār’s laqab (nickname) was Kaysān. (See: al-Nawabakhtī, Firaq al-Shī`ah, pg. 33, # 55).

Nader also believes that the action of Mukhtar al-Thaqafi to avenge the tragedy of Karbala is praiseworthy (based on some narration) but the personality of al-Thaqafi is not without controversy.

He also made a side comment about an Iranian TV series portrayal of Mukhtar as a good guy.

our Shee`ahs are getting misguided and swayed by this new phenomenon TV series by Iran titled Mukhtār Nameh (Narratives of Mukhtār). If you were to watch this TV series, by the time you finish watching it you will be under the impression that al-Mukhtār was a “good” guy, when it is farther from the truth.

End of the Year Report

I thank all my contributors and visitors. I could not have done this without you all.

I am looking through some of the statistics for my blog.

The top ten countries for the visitors are United States, United Kingdom, Pakistan, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, India, United Arab Emirates, Finland and Germany. Other countries that didn't made into the top ten list are Indonesia, Turkey, Switzerland, Lebanon, Netherlands, Albania, Egypt, France, Spain, Kuwait, Qatar, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Brazil, Denmark, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Mauritius, Russia, Sweden, Singapore, Belgium, Tanzania, South Africa, Austria, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Malawi, Norway, Brunei, Algeria, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kenya, Morocco, Macedonia, Maldives, Nigeria, Poland, Slovenia, Senegal, Thailand, Uganda and a few more countries.

From February 2011 until December 2011, 65% of my visitors were new while 35% were returning visitors.

44% of the visitors were using the Firefox browser while 21% were using Chrome and 16% were using Internet Explorer. Other browsers and platforms are Safari, Opera, Android, Blackberry and other mobile devices/phones.

Most of my traffic originates from google.com. Most of the searches are very much related to specific Islamic sects (name of the sects, name of the leader or geographical location).

From the page/content views information, my visitors like to read pages related to Shia, Sunni, Ismailis and Ghulat sects.

I made 0 cent from advertising. :( That's bad.

ShiaChat Undergoing maintenance

But you are able to enter the chat room from this link
http://www.shiachat.com/forum/index.php?/chat/

***This link doesn't work anymore. Sorry!

Finally ..done

The work for restructuring the blog is completed. The pages are done. See the label “articles” on the right side of the blog.

The first page contains most of the important articles written about Shia, Sunni, Murjiyyah, Salafi, Zaydi sect.

The second page is mainly about Ismailism. I've also added some articles about Batinis and Yazidism. Yazidism is not related to Ismailism.

The third page contains most of the articles about Ghulat sects. This page is mostly geared towards researching the Ghulat sects, such as Alawi/Nusayris, Druze and the Kaysanite (one of the earliest of the Ghulat sect).

The fourth is mostly a work in progress. I haven't made up my mind on the category. As of now, articles written about the kharajites, Waqifa (better suited in the Ghulat category), Shaykhism (is this sufi, sunni or shia sect?) are temporarily placed here. Expect to see some changes in the future.

The fifth page is also a work in progress. As of now it contains information about Zoroastrianism, Sabians and a few other extinct sects.