Body Scanners -The Emperor’s New Clothes
When the emperor was desperate and looking for a way of telling who was wise from his courtiers he began to look to experts to solve his situation. As usual there are always ‘experts’ waiting in the wings ready to offer a technology that would expose the faults of others. And so he was literally and figuratively lulled into their spin on technology and soon had embraced the technological marvel of clothing that could only seen by the wise. Of course as charlatans they had stitched nothing but the emperor had convinced himself of their truth and ’saw’ the invisible air as beautiful clothes and had quickly divested himself of his clothes and was parading around naked in front of all to see. Until a small boy not yet influenced by the pogrom of spin asked the simple but profound question: ‘ Why is the emperor riding his horse stark naked’.
The rapidity with which body scanners are being introduced after the underwear bombing attempt is alarming and raises many questions and concerns with both Muslims and non-Muslims…
Continue Reading 2 comments February 18, 2010
Changing Tides
Bismillah, alhamdulillah.
I had an interesting conversation with an elderly Saudi gentleman the other day. He was reminiscing about the time his mother who had nine children would look after all of them and she had no maid to help her carry out the daily chores in life.
Her life was very simple she would wash her children’s clothes with Tide. When it came to the time to wash the house whe would reach for her Tide. When it came to bathing time she would also use her Tide. Life was very simple and the large number of detergents were not available. Despite the lack of assistance she had time for her relatives and would spend time with her children.
Shifting back to the present the man carried on speaking about a simple shopping trip nowadays in Saudi Arabia. There was a special washing powder for particular types of clothes, one for coloured, one for whites. Then there is a soap for your body and another for your hair. Ofcourse there is one for your kitchen, one for the bathroom and another for general cleaning. And the list had now become bewildering. To cap it all off now wife’s had fewer children, maids to help them and had less time than ever before.
Tide as a brand has been around since the 1940’s and would have been one of the first few products imported from the USA to Saudi Arabia.
Add comment February 2, 2010
I have started to twitter
Bismillah, alhamdulillah.
I have decided to start using the Twitter service to start penning down my jottings under emuslimtweets. It allows you to write 140 characters at a time and people can follow the micro-blogs or tweets as they are known. Blog entries can also be added to the tweets using a service such as twitterfeed.com. You can follow (limited countries) a tweet and tweet from your own mobile phone.
Apart from personal bloggers it has proved to be a vital real time communication tool for major agencies such as the CDC co-ordinating emergency health information etc. Other people are using it to provide a summarised hadith on a daily basis (twitter.com/dailyhadith).
It is a very useful way of communicating for organisations with their employees or where breaking information is important. In a dawah sense it would be a good source of alerts – the Muslim Council of Britain have also decided to use it as an advertising source.
Perhaps some more useful ideas on using twitter would be:
1. Localised twitter for charities i.e. appeals for local poor persons.
2. Localised twitter for the unwell and requests for duas etc.
3. Localised twitter feed for events in masjids
Some of my first few tweets are below:
____________
- SAUDI Shopping – Where can you buy a camping stove in Jeddah? SACO, one on Andalus St the other on Tahlia near the Al-Baik near Aziziyah. 5 minutes ago
- Bismillah: Example of delusional belief: Tony Blair ‘I do genuinely believe that the world is safer as a result (of the war against Iraq)” 9 minutes ago
- Bismillah: ‘Dad what is a kangaroo court?’ After answering I wondered where the term came from – erratic US judges in the 19th century! 22 hours ago
- Bismillah: iPAD? Why would you buy an iPAD & an iPHONE it would be plain iMAD. When are we getting a folding screen?! 22 hours ago
Add comment January 29, 2010
Is the Quran created?
بسم الله الحمد لله
- Quran is God’s command Q42:52.
- God’s command is distinct from creation Q7:54.
- QED
والأدلة على أنه غير مخلوق قوله تعالى : ( ألا له الخلق والأمر ) فجعل والأدلة على أنه غير مخلوق قوله تعالى : ( ألا له الخلق والأمر ) فجعل الخلق شيئاً والأمر شيئا آخر
لأن العطف يقتضي المغايرة والقرآن من الأمر بدليل قوله تعالى : ( وكذلك أوْحَيْنَا إليك روحا من أمرنا
ما كنت تدري ما الكتاب ولا الإيمان ولكن جعلناه نوراً نَهْدِي به من نَشَاءُ من عبادنا ) الشورى /52 ، فإذا كان القرآن أمراً وهو قسيم للخلق ، صار غير مخلوق ، لأنه لو كان مخلوقاً ما صح التقسيم فهذا هو الدليل من القرآن . شيئاً والأمر شيئا آخر
Source: islam-qa
Add comment December 18, 2009
Can we say we are the children of God?
يسم الله الحمد لله
- A weak hadith implies this.
- If literal it is kufr.
- If metaphorical it is permissible for dawah only.
- If implies all religions are acceptible it is kufr.
- If implies brotherhood between Muslims and Disbelievers it is false.
- حديث البزار ضعيف : لخلق كلهم عيال الله ، فأحبهم إلى الله أنفعهم لعياله
Source: islam-qa
Add comment December 18, 2009
Does Satan whisper to Christians in prayer?
Waswaas = whispers. Khanzab is a devil who whispers in prayer, removed by spitting (Muslim). Increase concentration by: Reflecting on the meaning of the Quran, worship Allah as if He is looking at you, look forward to prayer, decrease deisres and attachment to things. Jews and Christians do not get waswaas because the devil does not interfere with a house in ruins.
Source: islam-qa
Add comment December 18, 2009
Who was the first man to say (أم بعد) amma ba’d?
Bismillah, alhamdulillah.
Came across this lovely speech which is attributed to Qus bin Sai’dah Al-Ayyaadee (قس بن ساعدة الإيادي), known as حكيم العرب (Wisest of the Arabs). He is also the first person to have used the now famous phrase أم بعد (amma ba’d and to proceed) when giving his speech.
Continue Reading 1 comment December 18, 2009
The first boy – son of Ismail
Bismillah, alhamdulillah.
The young boy entered the masjid with his notebook tucked under his arm. Sitting cross legged he looked up at the Shayk giving his lesson. The hadith lessons were being eagerly memorised by other students in the class, most were much older than him, but his mother made sure he came and he felt he wanted to come.
The Shaykh was known as the مؤدب (muaddib or inculcator of manners). He asked the young boy, how many hadith have you written?
The boy answered with a quiet, ‘Two hadith.’
The other boys in the masjid started to laugh at him, ‘Just two!’
The muaddib rebuked them saying, ‘Do not laugh at him. Perhaps one day this boy will laugh at you.’
The boy was Muhammad bin Ismail Al Bukhari, the famous muhaddith. The names of the other boys in the class who had laughed have been lost in the long corridors of history.
[Source: نبيل العوضي]
1 comment December 13, 2009
Google Earth Islam
Bismillah, alhamdulillah.
I happened to be reading a hadith which involved a Jewish tribe called Bani Nadeer. The Prophet Muhammad (S) when living in Madeenah had signed a treaty with them and had gone to visit them to request help to pay blood money for two men. While seated with his companions during the negotiations with tribe he was informed by revelation from God that the Jewish tribe were going to assassinate him by throwing a boulder.
The Prophet (S) did not tell anyone and rose to say that he had to go for a call of nature and left his companions behind. The Jewish tribe unaware that he had been informed by God of their plans sat waiting with his companions sure that he would return to meet his end at their hands.
The Prophet (S) did not return and the Companions grew anxious and went out to search for him. They eventually found him in a place of safety and he informed them of what had happened. The Jewish tribe realised that they had broken the treaty and negotiated a surrender to the Muslims. Part of the surrender treaty was that they were banished to a place called Al-Jalaa.
I wondered where al-Jalaa was when I wished I could just tap into a website that would label all the historical sites in Islamic history with links to Google Earth. It would be a wonderful idea as a means of teaching children Islamic history perhaps even inviting others to Islam. The Google Earth element would allow Muslims to envision the Islamic world as a united body and just begin to imagine what the world would look like if divided by the borders of Islam rather than the artificially imposed political borders that are designed to currently impede, divide and hamper.
Children could undertake the journeys that famous travellers made, relive the Islamic conquests in front of their eyes, see where famous scholars were born and their journeys around the world. Google Earth not only allows points to be added, but also allows you to add information and you can even have tracks that will take you from one place to another. The possibilities are huge.
I pray that God inspires someone to implement the idea.
Add comment December 10, 2009
