Muharram is generally a sad month

The Shias mourn the martyrdom of Imam Hussayn (as), his family and his loyal companions on the first 10 days of this month. The biggest day is the tenth of Muharram or the Ashura (December 6th, 2011).

A number of activities are planned on this day, such as, giving speeches remembering Imam Hussayn (as), reciting sad poetries (marsiya, nouha, latmiyah), carrying banners and arts decoration in support of Prophet family and also participating in the Ashura procession.

Please click here to see the philosophy of the mourning.

Interesting post in my reading list

I have been following a number of interesting blogs. For the past few days, the entries have been really good, but what caught my eyes today is a letter written by The Perfectionistas. She urged the silent majority to end the silence on the event of Ashura. She said

much time is spent relating how God blessed a string of noble prophets on Ashura, the 10th day of the sacred month of Muharram, as they spread the Divine message on earth. But little to no time is given to discuss the Ashura event that safeguarded this same message from corruption after the era of the prophets came to an end.

Respected scholars, I ask you to disseminate the story of Hussain far and wide--not just for the sake of historical truth or inclusiveness--but because it is the sunnah (tradition) of the Prophet (S) and exactly what the world needs right now!

ShiaChat.ORG

ShiaChat is up.

I had a nice little vacation. How about you?

ShiaChat hacked?

The sectarian hackers left the following message


"So you have to be living in the moon to believe the mahdi is going to be shia"

Yep! The Imam al-Mahdi is a true follower of the Prophet and his family. The Mahdi would not be following their brand of misguidance (murjiyyah aka Sunnism or Salafism/wahabism).

What is happening in Egypt?

29 dead since Saturday.

The military rulers in Egypt tried to keep power to themselves by promising to handover the rule to the civilians in 2013. The Egyptians want the military to handover the rule now. So, the military is now promising to step down in July next year. The people are outraged.

This is a very good comment

ali_hussain left a well-researched comment on one of my post. It contains hadith references, both from the Sunni and the Shia sources, on why the Zorastrians are considered Ahl al-Kitab or The People of the Book.

I thank him for taking the time to find the information and for posting it here.

Who are the people of the book?

An anonymous user posted the following question

If these people were not in iran do you think they would be considered as people of the book? I serioulsy doubt it, going by this flimsy definition of who are the people of the book, every religion should be included.

This is a good question. Since I know very little about the Zoroastrianism, I don't know for sure why they are considered as People of the Book.

However, I do know for sure that we don't define and classify people based on geographical location.

There are verses in the Quran that refer to groups of religious people as Ahlul Kitab (29:46, 3:113-115, 3:199, 2:62, 3:64)

A common theme in all the verses is that these religions have a divine origin; divine revelations or prophets from God. Perhaps Jews and Christians are the two most well known religion. Other faiths that are more obscure are the Sabians and Mandaeism

I find this topic very interesting. I am not knowledgeable enough at the moment to give a concise answer on why the Zorastrians are included as the people of the book. The answer given by the Shaykh seems to indicate that Zorastrianism has a divine origin; a reveled scripture and a prophet of god. Also remember that Zoroastrianism is not an extinct religion. You will find people, until this day, that profess this religion.

I am trying to

improve the outline of my blog.

I eliminated a bunch of categories, such as,

the obscure sects. Now, the labels will appear as sects name Sabians, Mandaeism, Manichaeism
the non-sects and other-sects because they are pretty vague.

I really like the cloud labels for more categories. It is taking far less space than the labels configured on the top of the blog.

I am also going to work on blog Pages. I have a page for the Shia-Sunni posts. And maybe another page for the non Shia-Sunni. Still haven't figure out a name.

What is the Purpose of Life?

I have only created Jinns and men, that they may serve Me. [Al-Quran 51:56]

وَمَا خَلَقْتُ ٱلْجِنَّ وَٱلْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ ﴿٦٥﴾

Are Zoroastrians People of the Book?

This question was answered here.

Many scholars regard Zoroastrians as People of the Book because Zoroastrianism was originally a monothesitic religion. Allah (swt) sent them a prophet, who some say his name was Zoroaster or "Zardosht." They also have a sacred book which was revealed to them commonly called the "Avesta." Therefore, since Zoroastriansm had a divine origin, even though it has now been significantly changed and adulterated, some classify its followers as part of the People of the Book. In the history of Islam, for some time the Muslims treated them as the part of the People of the Book and imposed the jizya on them.

Thanks to the Sayyed for answering the question.

The actions or works of humans are an integral part of the faith--part 3

In the Quran, faith is mentioned in the verse of changing of the Qibla

We appointed the Qibla to which thou wast used, only to test those who followed the Messenger from those who would turn on their heels(From the Faith). Indeed it was (A change) momentous, except to those guided by God. And never would God Make your faith of no effect. For God is to all people Most surely full of kindness, Most Merciful. [2:143]

The following verses indicate that the faith of someone may increase

Whenever there cometh down a sura, some of them say: "Which of you has had His faith increased by it?" Yea, those who believe,- their faith is increased and they do rejoice. [9:124]

For, Believers are those who, when God is mentioned, feel a tremor in their hearts, and when they hear His signs rehearsed, find their faith strengthened, and put (all) their trust in their Lord.[8:2]

So, if the faith was already perfect with the initial confession, then there would be no room for any increase.

The hadiths mentioned a number of duties and practices as part of faith. And new duties/practices are added to reflect the various stages of the revelation.

Abu Ubayd (the Sunni Traditionalist) sums up by declaring that "Faith/Iman" consists in intention (niyya), speech and work". Whoever affirms his belief of God and his messenger is only entering the faith and not perfecting it.

I still don't understand why the great majority of Muslims are soo blind

They act as if the incident at Ghadeer never happened! Despite this being one of the most narrated event in the Islamic history. And today is the 1079 anniversary of that event.

Happy Eid al-Ghadeer to all the believers of the Wilayah of the Ahlul Bayt. And here is a wonderful video that can be enjoyed by everyone, including those who don't believe in the wilayah of Ahlul Bayt.

Video of Eid al Ghadeer

This is the last sermon of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him). He told the Muslims that he is leaving behind two precious things and if the Muslims adhere to them, they will never go astray.

The first precious thing is the book of Allah swt.
And the second precious thing is his family (Ahlul Bayt)

And the Holy Prophet (pbuh) said that “the two shall never separate from each other until they meet me at the pool of Kauthar in Paradise”

Then to emphasize his message and to let the people know what he means by his family..in case someone had doubt about his family, he called Ali ibn Talib to the podium and said
“For whoever I am his leader (mawla), then Ali is also his leader (mawla)”.

Detail event of the Ghadeer http://www.al-islam.org/ghadir/incident.htm

The Two Opposing Doctrines of Faith in Sunni Islam --part 2

The book al-Iman is analyzed on page 3. According to Madelung, while many people believe that the author of the book is unknown/ anonymous, a lot more believe that this book is actually the work of the Sunni traditionalist Abu 'Ubayd al-Qasim.

The first chapter of the book al-Iman is entitled "chapter on the definition of faith in its perfection (istikmdl) and its degrees". Here, Abu Ubayd states that the ulama are divided into two groups.

• The position of the first group is, the Iman/faith consists in "sincere devotion (ikhlas) to God in the hearts, testimony of the tongues, and work of the limbs". (Position 1)
• The other party maintains that faith "is in the hearts and tongues". Works or actions are not part of the faith. (Position 2)

Abu 'Ubayd stated that the first position is supported by the Quran and the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet. He added that Islam rejects the second position. The second position is represented by the Sunni Imam Abu Hanifah or Hanafi Murji'ism. He argued that many Islamic rituals were reinstated in Medina beginning with the change in the direction of the Qiblah. And had the people not follow the new direction of the Qibla,

"this would have availed them nothing and would have amounted to a repudiation of their confession, since their first act of obedience was no better entitled to the name of faith than their second one"

Abu 'Ubayd maintain that the Murjiyyah and the earlier Hanafis were wrong because they did not include the Islamic acts and rituals (many that were established in Medina) as part of the faith.

On the other hand, the Murjiyyah reasoned that since the Quran already referred to the people in the early days of the Prophet mission (in Makkah) as Muslim, so all the newly established ritual would not have any effects on their Iman/faith. They also argued that if the ritualistic part of Islam was so fundamental or if it was crucial to completing the faith/Iman, then Allah swt should have not called the earlier folks Muslims!

The Two Opposing Doctrines of Faith in Sunni Islam

I am reading an interesting paper.

Here are the two opposing doctrines of Faith in Sunni

School of Abu Hanifa and Maturidi theology (Murjiyyah)
Faith/Iman is knowledge or verbal confession. Your work/actions are excluded.

Hanbali or Ashari theology (Traditional Sunni)
Faith/Iman is the knowledge, verbal confirmation and actions.

The author of this paper (Wilferd Madelung) has analyzed the

• Hanafi Sunni-Murjiyyah point of view by reading the book K. al-'dlim wa I-mula'allim of Abu Muqatil al-Samarqandi (d. 208/823)
• And the book al-Iman whose author is the Abi 'Ubayd al-Qasim b. Sallam al-Harawi

The court system in Malaysia is very unfair towads the Shia Minority

A judge in Malaysia decided to rule in favor of a politician. The politician, Muhammad Khusrin, who was the director of JAIS, was sued by the Malaysian Shia for Slander.

I don't really know if the judge is corrupt or incompetent, but his reasoning is extremely flawed. According to the judge (Singham), and I am translating verbatim

The Judge decided that the statement uttered by then director of the religious department on December 2010, which was published in the newspaper 'Utusan Malaysia' on December 17, was not referring directly to any individual. The statement is only referring to a group of Shia. The judge continued by saying that the statement never mentioned the plaintiff or any Shia.

And to add salt to injury, the judge said "The plaintiff only imagined that the statement is referring to himself".

I still don't know if the judge was bribed or not. Maybe he is sincere but very incompetent. This should have been an easy victory for the Malaysian Shia because the politician who was sued for slander and libel, made his slanderous remark on camera on national tv, after he arrested the plaintiff and 200 other Shias for being deviant on the December of last year. Here are the videos of the arrest.

These are some of the remarks made by the politician (who was then the director of the organization) who arrested the Shias of Malaysia for being deviant:

• JAIS Director Datuk Muhammed Khusrin Munawi said, they believe the group has been active for two years and they have enough evidence to relate the group as Syiah deviants before conducting a raid.
  
• He added that the teachings of Syiah if let to be spread could pose as a threat to the nation’s security as its fanatic followers regard Muslims from other denominations as kafir.
• According to the Islamic Jurisdiction Administration Enactment of 1989, Syiah is considered a deviate from Sunnah Wal Jamaah as some of its teachings contradict from from aqidah and syariah views.
• 
  Among its practices include excessive praising of Saidina Ali, allowing mutaah (contractual) marriages, rejecting hadith narrated by Sunnah Wal Jamaah and labeling other the companions of the Prophet as kafir.
• Khusrin said all those who were detained will be charged under Section 12 © of the Selangor Syariah Criminal Enactment 1995 which are insulting, rejecting, or dispute the violation of the instructions set out and given a fatwa by the religious authorities

Many of his statements were printed in newspaper and other medias (TV and radio)

Its director, Datuk Mohammed Khusrin Munawi said they have been investigating the group since two years ago and after gaining enough evidence to tie them as a hardcore follower of the teachings of the Shia, then the headquarters was raided. He said that the Shiite doctrine, if left to grow could threaten national security because of the fanatical followers of the sect considers other Muslims as infidels.

"For them, the blood of the followers of other faiths is lawful and it means that adherents of the followers of Sunnah Wal Jamaah could be killed.

"Shia doctrine is more dangerous than other deviated teachings like Al Arqam (a local deviated group that was banned by the government). Shi'ite followers in Iran and India, for example, are fighting between Muslims merely because of different faiths.

"This shall be avoided in the country and the purpose for which it blocked," he told reporters when met at the location of the raid here today.

Penn State Sexual Abuse

Absolutely shocking and horrible.

Jerry Sandusky, the child molester & also an assistant coach, was arrested for sexually molesting 9 little boys over the period of 15 years at the Penn State University Campus. The University did absolutely nothing to either stop the abuse or to keep the children away from the molester. The University did not even attempt to report the pedophile to police. A number of eye witnesses saw the molester sodomizing little boys in the locker room. See an incident reported in the New York Times (caution very graphic).

The eye witness did nothing to stop the act

A pedophile caught in the act, and you’d think a graduate student would know enough to stop the rape and call the police. But McQueary, who was 28 years old at the time, was a serf in the powerfully paternal Paternoland. According to the report, he called his dad, went home and then the next day went to the coach’s house to tell him.

The head coach didn't think it was his duty to call the police.

Paterno, who has cast himself for 46 years as a moral compass teaching his “kids” values, testified that he did not call the police at the time either.

The athletic director did nothing.

Tim Curley, the Penn State athletic director who had been a quarterback for Paterno in the ’70s. Curley did not call the university police, who had investigated an episode in 1998 in which Sandusky admitted he was wrong to shower with an 11-year-old boy and promised not to do it again

The vice president of Penn State did nothing

The eye witness repeated his sodomy story for Curley and Gary Schultz, a university vice president who oversaw campus police. Two more weeks passed before Curley contacted McQueary to let him know that Sandusky’s keys to the locker room had been taken away and the incident had been reported to The Second Mile, the charity Sandusky started in 1977.

The president of Penn State did nothing.

Curley told the university president, Graham Spanier, about the matter, and it got buried.

There were other incidents too. The University did absolutely nothing. As Maureen puts it "Like the Roman Catholic Church, Penn State is an arrogant institution hiding behind its mystique."

An attorney for the victims pointed out that

"This situation is perfectly analogous to all the Catholic church cases I've litigated," Anderson said. "People at the top protected the institution at the peril of children. Here the coaches and administrators of Penn State were acting just like the bishops, cardinals, and archbishops of these dioceses. The same moral and legal quagmire exists. Penn State protected the football program's reputation instead of the children." He said that Sandusky's alleged acts, just like the Catholic priests, were both "cunning and careful."As a result, Anderson said, "They (Penn State) clearly face severe legal exposure for institutional failure. They are liable for these incidents."

Early Sunni Doctrine Concerning Faith

I will try to read this article in the next few days, Insha Allah.

Early Sunnī Doctrine concerning Faith as Reflected in the "Kitāb al-Īmān" of Abū 'Ubayd al- Qāsim b. Sallām (d. 224/839)
Author(s): Wilferd Madelung
Source: Studia Islamica, No. 32 (1970), pp. 233-254
Published by: Maisonneuve & Larose
URL

Is Shaykhism Shi`ism with a Sufi twist?

Nader coined an interesting concept about Shaykhism (see post #3 )

In essence Shaykhism is Shi`ism with a Sufi twist.

Also, I have been noticing that Shayh Ahmad Ahsai position is not very clear. Or maybe we are not understanding his position.

Please click on the link for further info.

Was Shaykh Ahsai an Akhbari or an Usooli?

post # 8 from SC topic (contribution by a user)

Shaykh wasn't akhbari. He was usooli and one of his teachers was Sayyid Mahdi Bahr al-'Ulum Tabataba'i from whom he received letters of ijtihad as well as Kashifu'l Ghita & others. He did have akhbari teachers since Bahrain was a major center of akhbari activities in the late 1700s and they didn't mind teaching him.

According to some reports by the time of his death in the 1820s, about a 25% of Iran's population gave him taqlid. During his heyday, he was one of about 7 marjas in Yazd and Kermanshah but his followers were considered to be unusually attached to him & his teachings. He was originally from eastern Arabia and taught in Bahrain and attended the hawzas of Najaf & Kerbala. He refused to acquiesce to other ulema on his views and he refused to be legitimized by the Fath 'Ali Shah, the Qajar king.

The major source of issue for some about him was that he was an arif and because of this sometimes the views of the arif contrast with those who are juristic in background. He viewed the Shi'ite jurisprudent as a mystic and one who should be overwhelmingly spiritual by nature. The concept, as totally expounded by Shaykh, is similar to the Sufi concept of a qutb. In simpler terms, another form of legitimacy for the jurisprudent was through the qalb (heart) via dreams and he based his views on various Qur'anic passages as well as from certain hadith.

He had takfir pronounced upon him by Mulla Muhammad Taqi Baraghani of Qazwin but none of the ulema of the first order such as Shaykh Musa, the son of Kashifu'l Ghita, Mulla Ali Nuri or Mulla Ahmad Naraqi to name a few would do such. Really, there's nothing much different (from my unknowledgeable eyes) that's different from the school of Isfahan. Had Shaykh lived 200 years earlier, he would have been included among them.

...Shaykh al-Ahsai did not have anything to do with the creation of the Shaykhi school of thought, although again, his views were considered controversial among Usoolis & Akhbaris alike. He had influence on them but Sayyid Kazim Rashti, one of al-Ahsai's disciples, was the actual founder and even he didn't see himself or the latent Shaykhi movement as something seperate from the Usooli school.


Shaykh al-Ahsai never saw himself outside of the mainstream flow of Shi'ite ideology. Some of Shaykh's writings are confusing when read but you would need a qualified spiritual instructor to get through some of his letters. The Bahais like to use him because of his writings on the Perfect Shiite or the Perfect Man (Insan-e-Kamal). There's a lot more. You can read an article on him from Juan Cole who has written extensively on him and there's another work I read on Shaykh but I can't remember the author's name right now but it was very profound because it dealt with the metaphysical aspects of Shaykh's views and it was the author's thesis. I'll know in two weeks because there's a brother I know who has the book and I'll see him next weekend.

Shaykh Ahmad Ahsai bio.

Translating Arabic words to English

The Grammar Girl podcast has a new episode on why it is so difficult to translate Arabic words to English.

Translating Arabic words to English is difficult because the languages use different alphabets and there are no set rules to correlate the Arabic letters to the Latin letters we use in English. When we see Arabic words written in English, they’re actually not a translation, but a transliteration--a representation of how the Arabic words would sound if they were written in the Latin alphabet. Since sounds can be interpreted slightly different ways, you'll see "Gadaffi," "Kadafi," "Qaddafi," and so on.

It’s the same reason you see “Koran” spelled a few different ways in English publications including “Koran,” “Quran,” and “Qur’an.” There isn’t a right or wrong way; it’s a style choice.

So Many Books

Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance by Gabriel Zaid
A small book with a total of 142 pages.

This is a book review done in September of last year. It was originally posted here.

To the Unrepentant Reader,

The reading of books is growing arithmetically; the writing of books is growing exponentially.

If our passion for writing goes unchecked, in the near future there will be more people writing books than reading them!

This book is asking a question that nobody in their right mind would think to ask;

Is reading books really useful, healthy or even necessary?
If you say YES! Then you are absolutely wrong!

I am quoting selective passages from the book, so you can see what the author thinks

Page 22:

Books are published at such a rapid rate that they make us exponentially more ignorant. If a person read a book a day, he would be neglecting to read four thousand others, published the same day. In other words, the books he didn’t read would pile up four thousand times faster than the books he did read, and his ignorance would grow four thousand times faster than his knowledge.

Page 24:

A Universal Library system is established (a great library of Babel) that holds every single book ever published, more than fifty million titles;…each reader is able to read four books a week, two hundred a year, ten thousand in a half-century. It would be as nothing. If not a single book were published from this moment on, it would still take 250,000 years for us to acquaint ourselves with those books already written.

When we say that books should be read by everyone, we aren’t thinking. Our simple physical limitations make it impossible for us to read 99.9 percent of the books that are written.

Humankind writes more than it can read.

Differences between 12-Imam Shi'ism and Zaydis or Ismailism

Straight from this book

Imamis (The Twelver)
The Shi'ites asserted that the Islamic caliphate, of which esoteric guidance and spiritual leadership are inseparable elements, belongs to Ali and his descendants. They also believed that according to the specification of the Prophet the Imams of the Household of the Prophet are twelve in number. Shi'ism held, moreover, that the external teachings of the Quran, which are the injunctions and regulations of the Shari'ah and include the principles of a complete spiritual life, are valid and applicable for everyone at all times, and are not to be abrogated until the Day of
Judgment. These injunctions and regulations must be learned through the guidance of the Household of the Prophet.

Imamis vs. Zaydis
From a consideration of these points it becomes clear that the difference between Twelve-Imam Shi'ism and Zaydism is that the Zaydis usually do not consider the imamate to belong solely to
the Household of the Prophet and do not limit the number of Imams to twelve. Also they do not follow the jurisprudence of the Household of the Prophet as do the Twelve-Imam Shi'ites.

Imamis vs. Ismailis
The difference between the Twelve-Imam Shi'ism and Isma'ilism lies in that for the latter the imamate revolves around the number seven and prophecy does not terminate with the Holy Prophet Muhammad. Also for them, change and transformation in the injunctions of the Shari'ah are admissible, as is even rejection of the duty of following Shari'ah, especially among the Batinis. In contrast, the Twelve-Imam Shi'ites consider the Prophet to be the "seal of prophecy" and believe him to have twelve successors and executors of his will. They hold the external aspect of the Shari'ah to be valid and impossible to abrogate. They affirm that the Quran has both an exoteric and an esoteric aspect.

Reference
Shia by Allamah Sayyed Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai