Teaching resource (under 10s) – Riyadh Saliheen 306 – 310

Bismillah, alhamdulillah.

Get the children to match the hadeeth to a picture. Stick it on the fridge, tell them to teach others.

Riyadh Saliheen - Hadeeth Worksheet

Filed under: Education, Hadeeth worksheet for under 10s, Riyadh saliheen 306 - 310, Riyadh Saliheen picture worksheet

Teaching resource – Authority of the Sunnah Part 1

Bismillah alhamdulillah.

This is a book written by Muhammad Taqi Usmani on the The Authority of the Sunnah. I have added LOBs (Learning Obectives) so that the text can be used as a source for teaching 14+ year olds. The first 7 learning objectives are as follows:

Learning Objectives

1. Understand the sources of Islamic law.
2. The three types of actions which are considered as part of the Sunnah
3. Role of the Messenger of Allah as shown by the Quran (3:164; 62:2)
4. The logical consequence of obedience based on the roles in 3.
5. Obedience of the Messenger is explicitly stated.
6. Significance of mentioning the obedience of God with the obedience of the Messenger.
7. Rewards of obedience of both (stating evidence).

The part of the text reproduced below covers the above 7 objectives.

Filed under: Education, learning objectives, lesson plan for the sunnah, The Authority of the Sunnah - teaching resource

Tony Blair – testament to the truth of Prophet Muhammad (S)

Bismillah, alhamdulillah.

Imagine the scenario. A directive has come to spread a message to the whole world. Not from the well funded Pentagon or the halls of power in Europe or cash rich China but in a desert in war torn and impoversihed corner of the world. The material resources that will be given for the project amount a to a budget of virtually zero and you have two decades to achieve your objective. Your mission will be judged a success if your message outlives you and continues until the end of time!

Well that sounds quite daunting even though you may be able to scrape the money together to get a viral advert on You Tube perhaps. But you decide to start locally first and you have been working hard for around 10 years when you have managed to get the attention of the local businessmen and politicians in your city. They have come round for dinner. If you can convince them this will be a major boost to your efforts and you look at the calender and you realise you have eaten almost half of your allocated time. Dinner starts and concludes and now your are about to give your after dinner speech, the crunch moment.

Just as you start to get into your flow one of the few very poor supporters of your mission gate crashes the party and turns up at the table and pulls you by the hand and asks if you have anythng new to teach! Eveyone’s attention is diverted to the poor man and you can see the signs of concern on the businessman wearing their expensive suits as to whether the poor man might give them scabies or some disease! The politicians are wondering why you have allowed that man in their presence.

You might feel dissapointed, perhaps angry you might even say something to keep your poor supporter quiet as this is not the best moment to be interrupted. However you decide to carry on and ignore him by turning away with a look of displeasure on your face and turn your attention back to your guests. Just then your mobile phone rings, it’s not the normal number you give out but the special number that only the source who gave you the mission knows.

You can’t refuse to answer, you pick up the phone and listen. In very severe terms you are told to tell everyone what you did was wrong. Your mission has to pay attention first to the people supporting you rather than the rich businessmen and politicians who are just not interested or think they are far too important. You are ordered to tell everyone this message and the phone goes dead. You tell everyone this new message and the businessmen and politicians stare back at you as if you have gone mad and leave in disgust as they don’t think they have been treated as royalty and have been made equal to the poor!

Your mission lies in ruins how will you proceed now?

Well the scenario is imaginary but it is here to paint a picture of the situation that confronted the Prophet Muhammad (S) when he was addressing the nobles and notables of his tribe in Makkah. His thirteen years in Makkah of labouring hard and trying to convince people that Islam was correct was not bearing much fruit. But now he had a golden opportunity to convince tribal leaders who in turn could convince all their tribesmen to join Islam! But just as the Prophet Muhammad (S) is engaged in trying to convince them Ibn Umm Maktoum a blind convert and companion of his comes and interrupts him. The Prophet (S) frowns and turns away from his companion. This is not the best moment to be interrupted! The frown and turn is hardly noticed by anyone but the All Seeing God sends down immedite guidance and a lesson. The All Wise God and master planner of the spread of Islam rebukes his Messenger by reveling the 80th surah of the Quran, surah Abasa.

Pause for a moment and think about this event. For any reflective studier of history this event is a miracle for the effect clearly should have scuppered the mission of Islam that Muhammad (S) was trying to bring about. Such critcism of his behaviour in such a public manner at such a critical juncture would be virtually suicidal in terms of the mission. If Muhammad (S) was a false prophet, a man chasing the reigns of power alone, then he would never have rebuked himself in such a manner at such a critical time. Look at the slow ‘sorry’ through gritted teeth that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair gave well after the events have passed that led to the multitude of deaths in Iraq. It is not in the nature of a politician or ruler to rebuke themselves so openly at crticial junctures in their reigns of power. Politicians believe that power slips through your hands, so throwing it away with such acts of humility is not political acumen but political suicide. Yet in the events that are captured by this Surah Prophet Muhammad (S) has effectively taken what little influence he had and thrown with an emphatic throw to the ground. A politician or a prophet? For a truly unbiased person a study of the life history of Prophet Muhammad (S) will only lead to the conclusion that this man was a true Prophet of God and not a politician interested in power and self-adulation.

The outcome of the Prophetic mission within close to a decade of this event was an unprecedented success completely at odds with what one should have predicted. The unbiased reader will never ceased to be astounded by the phenomenal success of the mission of  Prophet Muhammad’s (S). The combination of the lack of resources and ability to turn the negative into the positive defies any human explanation. What explanation can a fair reader of history give except that he is forced to the conclusion that this mission is not under human direction but  under the watchful gaze and guidance of God.

Filed under: Dawah, difference between a politician and prophet, Mission impossible, politicans, politicians v prophets, surah abasa - a historical miracle, Tony Blair testament to the truth of Muhammad (S)

Quran PowerPoints

Bismillah, alhamdulillah.

Here are some baseline presentations that can be used as material to present or produce your own presentations for the commentary of the smaller surahs in the Quran. Download from here.

Filed under: Quran, Quran commentaries via PowerPoint, Quran PowerPoints, Quran PowerPoints Surah 97-114

Wires, wires, wires

Bismillah, alhamdulillah.

How to use all those big black clips lying in the office.

Filed under: Wisdom, do your wires keep falling down?, how to use a paper clip, keep your desk tidy

The next time the kids complain about the car …

Bismillah, alhamdulillah

 

Thank you God for everything we have make us not ungrateful!

Filed under: Society, Public transport, school journey, thank you God

Water wars and hydroponics

Bismillah, alhamdulillah.

The Arab news gave extensive coverage to a conference on water resource management held in Saudi Arabia yesterday. The price of water is scheduled to go up. This is in light of the recent decision by the Saudi authorities to stop farming that is being done in the country which has been a very water inefficient process. As I was reading this the statistic that stuck in my mind was the predicted population explosion. The current population of Saudi Citizens is 20 million or thereabouts and is predicted to rise to current Egyptian levels of 80-100 million by 2060.

This potentially back breaking and war instigating demand on the provision of water to the citizens of Saudi Arabia and the greater Middle East is something that is exercising the minds of many in this area who  realise the potential of the problem. This was one of the reasons why Saudi Arabia abandoned its water rich and crop poor desert greenification attempts. If you drive from Riyadh to Dammam you can see the industrial attempt to greenify the desert, with industrial scale piping being used to irrigate circular patches of green. You can even see the patches of green on Google Earth as shown in the embed below (the round circles)

View Larger Map

No matter how rich you are you have to look at both the inputs and outputs. While Saudi is currently oil rich and can afford desalination a rapidly growing population implies it has to look at the outputs much more carefully and reduce water demand in the long term. Indeed this is the prophetic teaching of Muhammad (S) who is reported in a weak hadith to have advised a Companin who was doing his abltions that he should not waste water even if he is next to a river.

So can Saudi grow its food in an alternate way?

According to Professor Dickson Despommier the answer is yes. He was being interviewed by NPR radio yesterday and was advocating the use of  hydroponics to grow crops. His key points were as follows:

• Hydroponics is the science of growing crops without soil.
• This is something that happens in nature and the technology to grow such crops is well established.
• Hydroponics farms can be built in multi story buildings hence the term ‘vertical farms’
• Abandoned multistory buildings can be given a new lease of life.
• In sunshine rich countries the sun light can be transmitted via mirrors or even fibre optic cables to each plant!
• The crops and the ruit produced are indistinguishable from soil grown crops.
• The technique uses 70-80% less water than soil grown crops.
• The water can even be recycled.
• He is currently speaking to the Qatari government in the Middle East amongst others in the world to bring this idea  to them.

Saudi and other nations in a similar predicament should give this technique further thought and analysis.

Filed under: Saudi Arabia, World Affairs, hydroponics, Professor Dickson Despommier and hydroponics, Saudi farming, Saudi population explosion, Saudi water problem, soil is not needed for crop growth

Why is الرحمن الرحيم repeated in Surah Al Fatihah?

Wisdom of repetition

• Assuming the basamalah is the 1st verse why repeat the الرحمن الرحيم?
• The previous verse ends with رب العالمين ‘Lord of the Worlds’
• This gives a sense of awe and fear.
• The repetition is to reassure man that the Lord is Merciful.

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/islam2unotes/quran-tafseer-english/surahalfatihah-verse2

Filed under: Quran, mercy from the beginning, Quran - a message of mercy, Surah Al fatihah repetition

Surah Al Fatihah – Names

The Opening – الفاتحة

• Lit. ‘opening’ bec it is the opening. [1]

The Seven Often Repeated Verses – السبع المثاني

• The seven often repeated verses. [1]
• مثاني is the plural of مثنى mathnaa ‘pairs’ [1]
• Named bec. often recited in prayers. [1]
• May be derived from الثناء ‘praise’ (Kashaf) [2]
• Found in Surah Al Hijr (15:87) :

Filed under: Quran, Brief notes on the names of Surah Al Fatihah, Opening surah of the Quran

The Basmala – بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

اسم Derivation of the word

• That which points out to the meaning or points to the essence.
• Basri Grammarians
  • From سمو loftines.
  • اسم : that which is lofty
• Kufi Grammarians:
  • From سمة or sign.
  • Root وسم
• Basri more correct bec dimunitives سُمَيْ and not وُسيم and pl. match show the weak letter occurs at the 3rd radical and not at the beginning.

الله  – The word Allah

• Not given to others.
• May be the great name.
• No dual or plural.

الرحمن الرحيم

• Derived from رحمة
• Lit. Softness of the heart that gives rise to a kind act
• Self existent attribute. We see its effects.
• Meanings
  • Kind to all v the believers only
  • Mercy on the grand v minute level
  • Both patterns point to a continuous attribute.
  • Source of mercy v arrival of the mercy at the recipient
• الرحمن only occurs where Allah’s names as related to His essence are mentioned: الرحمن عَلَّمَ القرآن
• الرحيم used where there Allah’s names are mentioned that indicate His actions: إِنَّ الله بالناس لَرَءُوفٌ رَّحِيمٌ } { وَكَانَ بالمؤمنين رَحِيماً } { إِنَّهُ كَانَ بِكُمْ رَحِيماً }
• Hence given the above points strongest opinion out of meanings is last.
• Note: Common transaltions that take this into account are: Merciful and Bountiful.

An incomplete sentence

• Incomplete deliberately as a stylistic tool.
• The verb is missing.
• The implied verb is ‘I start’ with the name of God

Is it a verse in the Quran?

• Agreed that: a part of an ayah in Suah Al Naml: { إِنَّهُ مِن سُلَيْمَانَ وَإِنَّهُ بِسْمِ الله الرحمن الرحيم }
• Disgareement
  • Opinion 1
    • Part of Surah al Fatihah and other Surahs
    • Revealed once to separate surahs
    • Bec. written in mushaf unlike آمين when non Quranic words were not allowed.
    • Ibn Abbas, Umar, Abu Hurayrah, Shafi, Ahmad.
  • Opinion 2
    • Single ayah
    • Unique ayah.
    • Not part of any surah.
    • Evidence: Presence of disagreement is evidence of it not being part of a surah.

Should it be recited?

• Disputed see books of Fiqh.

Filed under: Quran, a unique verse in the Quran, Bismillah Arrahmaan Arraheem, first verse of Surah Al Fatihah, The Basmalah, the opening chapter of the Quran