Islam's Green

What will you get from this Ramadan?

The month of Ramadan is now well underway.
We were waiting, like Captains of the ships of old, for the right breeze to come and take us forward on our journey. We should have been preparing, but in our hustle, bustle life style I'm sure that most of us were ill prepared. We've hastily hoisted sail and the strain of fasting and praying at night is taking its toll.
This breeze that is Ramadan will only last so long. It is a great chance to take on provisions for our journey through this life to the akhira, but some of us will come back to the same port empty handed, with nothing in the hold. We will have got nothing from this breeze except exhaustion from hoisting the sail and running around the deck, and hanging on as the waves of thirst and hunger and desire try to wash us overboard. Perhaps we attained some remote feeling of satisfaction that at least we got out to sea, and experienced the hardship of those for whom this is a daily ordeal!
Allah sends this breeze every year, and Allah ordained that we should set sail in it for a reason and purpose.

"Oh you who believe! Fasting has been prescribed for you and those who came before you that you may acquire taqwa."

Allah has ordered fasting that we may attain taqwa.
If you leave port in your ship with the hold and coffers empty and return home with the hold and coffers empty, what did you get from that voyage?
Indeed, nothing!
Make an assessment of your level of iman, your sins and good deeds.
How much charity have you been giving the past year, how about your prayers at night? How much Quran do you read everyday?
Have you been keeping up with the sunnah prayers?
When you see evil do you try to stop it, or how much have you let slip by?
Have you been giving dawa, telling others at school, work, neighbors about Islam?
Where do your eyes wander and at what do they look? And your tongue, and what topples people on their faces into the hell fire like the harvest of the tongue? Have you restrained it from lies and deceit and foul language and argumentation.
Have you done extra fasts, made the adhkar of the morning and evening. Have you set for yourself a routine of dhikr to make everyday?
How has your treatment of your parents and family been? What have you done for the suffering ummah and humanity and planet?
Have you been a spendthrift, a waster?
Make an assessment now. Take stock now. Look into that hold and see what you've got.
Know this...
This breeze that takes you on this voyage of 30 days is an unprecedented opportunity stock up on the most important provision of all. Taqwa.
Taqwa is that which will guard you like a shield from Allah's wrath, anger and punishment. Taqwa is that which will lead you the safety of the harbour of His good pleasure from the furious crashing waves of His displeasure.
We seek refuge in Him from Him, in His Mercy from His wrath.
In these days Allah has chained those devils and thus restrained them form harming us. The gates of paradise are opened and the gates of hell are close.
So obedience is made easy.
In this a great benefit and blessing and lesson. If you can restrain yourself over these days, we can acquire a habit, we learn the ropes of obedience to Him again. We climb the rigging and begin to feel the breeze in our hair and the smell of the fresh clean air.
Yes it is hard, but life is hard. Life is a test, and in Ramadan we are learning the patience, restraint and self discipline that is essential to succeed in this life's voyage to the akhira.
When this month ends make sure my brothers and sisters that it does not end with you having gained nothing for what follows in the year ahead.
Make sure that in some way at least your life is different and improved and stays that way.
Make sure that you have increased in some way in obedience to Allah, and have decreased in disobedience to Allah, and you maintain that course, and that if Allah allows us to see another Ramadan then that one will see a change for the better in us also, until we meet our Lord!

Something to break your fast on....

By Asim Qureshi
www.cageprisoners.com

This Ramadhan we will be sitting down to eat with our families. Father,
husband, mother, wife and children, all together partaking in the barakah
of the month. Then they will recite the Qur’an and encourage each other to
do good for the sake of taking the most from the month in anticipation of
bettering themselves for the rest of the year, Insha Allah.
How will the detainees and their families be spending this Ramadhan? In
what state will they eat their food? To what extent will the Ummah relate
to their plight and connect these helpless hearts to the body of the
faithful.

The mothers and wives

Ismet Siddiqui currently sits under house arrest in her home in Karachi.
What is her crime? Actually nothing…The authorities are scared that she
will raise awareness about the disappearance of her daughter Aafia
Siddiqui along with her young grandchildren at the hands of the Pakistani
authorities. Ismet was threatened soon after their disappearance that her
grandchildren would permanently disappear if she spoke about the events.
Since 2003 mother and children have all been missing, and none can gain
access to Ismet.

For those mothers who have the ability to do something for their children,
their lives become the campaign to get their children home to safety. Abbi
Nawaz, mother of one of the Egypt 3, after being hit with innumerable
difficulties kept her courage, “They want to crush our spirits but they
are not going to succeed. If I have to go back there again, I will go back
there again and make sure this does not rest.” As Bisher El-Rawi rots away
in Guantanamo Bay, his mother Jahida Sayyadi was similarly writing to
highlight the cause of her son,

“I am not urging you to devise special rules to help my son out of his
torment. I am not seeking sympathy and soothing words. All what I beseech
is that go by your own books and help us implement your rules. Allow him a
fair trial. Deal with him in accordance with the rules which you take lots
of pride before the whole world on setting out and embracing. Go back to
the Geneva Conventions, to human rights declarations, and to hundreds and
hundreds of documents that have been signed and endorsed to secure the
human dignity and rights to a decent living.”

It is however in her capacity as a mother and wife that Farhat Paracha
embodies the difficulties faced by these women. Her husband, Saifullah
Paracha, has been illegally in US custody since July 2005. At the age of
60 with multiple illnesses, the US authorities decided to kidnap him on
his way to attending a business meeting in Bangkok. Their torment however
is amplified by the recent sentencing of their son, Uzair, to 30 years
imprisonment in the US on evidence that has been internationally seen as
being flimsy at best. Despite the ever increasing costs of running
campaigns for her loved ones, she manages to hold together her family and
run the family business.

With Ramadhan upon us, many wives will have to wake for Suhoor (the pre
dawn meal) without their husbands, as explained by the wife of one of the
UK detainees, “Life’s a lot harder now…we used to pray together, eat
together, wake up together…Now it’s like only half the family is waking
up. I wake up alone at sehri time…the girls are too young to fast anyway.
It’s sad…I miss the days he was waking up with me.”

The fathers and husbands

There are many fathers currently locked up all over the world; they all
remember their children and families with a longing that is the one thing
which keeps them going. For those such as Moazzam Begg, there was
particular cause for heartache, as he had never met his youngest child
until released from Guantanamo Bay. In a similar circumstance was the
released Guantanamo detainee Mamdouh Habib, who had never met his 4 year
old daughter. His wife, Maha Habib, said that on his return, the very
first thing she had in store for her husband was an introduction to their
daughter.

However they are not the only fathers who have been forced to suffer such
an injustice. Currently still sitting in the cages of Guantanamo remain
Jamil El Banna, Shaker Abdur Rahman Aamer and Omar Deghayes. All three
have yet to meet their youngest children who were born after they were
forcibly kidnapped and shipped off to Guantanamo Bay.

Here in the UK, the men that exist (for living would be a glorification of
their situation) in Belmarsh and other prisons, are cut off from the ones
they love so dearly. Daily they have to deal with the horror of knowing
that their wives and children are facing some of the harshest treatment
without any hope of help. Mustapha Labsi during his time in UK prisons had
minimal contact with his wife. He said of her situation, “My wife who is
not from this country was shocked mentally and psychologically and she
wanders in the streets without care or protection.”

For those under control orders, the husbands and fathers have the added
worry of having their entire households turned upside down beyond their
control. The family of Mahmoud Abu Rideh are faced with the prospect of
having their home and life raided by a large contingent of the police on
any random night. Already the police have raided their homes over 30 times
and they have major restrictions placed on their lives. For any
self-respecting father or husband, such infringement into their daily
lives is an insulting and degrading situation to be placed in. With
Ramadhan around the corner, the family face the prospect of having their
home raided during their Suhoor every single day.

The children

Johina Aamer, Michel Aamer, Saif Aamer, Faris Aamer, Anas El Banna,
Mohamed El Banna, Abdul Rahman El Banna, Badeeah El Banna, Mariam El
Banna, and the 2 children of Ahmed Errachidi are the children of just 3
British residents still in Guantanamo Bay. Unlike their fathers, these
children actually have British citizenship and thus the legal right to be
represented by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office when abroad and
complete rights to consular protection. Their fathers have not been
afforded this same right, for although being longstanding British
residents in the UK, they have not as yet been able to take citizenship.

Another child who has never known his father, is the son of Omar Deghayes,
who is also currently being held in Guantanamo Bay as one of the British
residents who face deportation to their countries of origin. The father of
Omar Deghayes was executed for political reasons by Colonel Qaddafi and
now Omar faces torture and political imprisonment for a crime he never
committed at the hands of the US administration. One thing is certain –
Omar’s son will grow up in a world where dictators like Qaddafi killed his
grandfather, and dictators like George W Bush took away the sight of his
father in one eye.

For many Muslim children, Ramadhan comes with the certainty of the immense
joy that comes with Eid. The children of the detainees have yet to
experience this pleasure, their Eid is spent trying to remember a man they
hardly know and in some cases do not know at all. 9 year old Anas El Banna
describes the hurt which comes with each Eid,

“Eid after Eid has come and gone and my Dad is still in chains. Two weeks
ago was the small Eid and in two months, it will be the big Eid. The best
and most wonderful Eid for me will be the Eid when my dad comes back to us
and brings back our happiness with him.”

These children have the right to grow up knowing their fathers, they have
the right to understand what fair and open trials mean, and yet they will
in all likelihood grow up knowing that these things are merely
philosophical ideals which belong to a bygone era. Meeting these children
only brings recognition that the Ummah has completely failed in its
obligations to its brothers and sisters, for the sadness in their eyes is
something that most of us will never experience.

DONATE TO SUPPORT YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS

This Ramadhan these families will not be complete and will have to spend
the month in the saddest of circumstances. For so many families,
Cageprisoners.com serves as their reference point to what is taking place
to their loved ones, wherever they may be in the world.
Cageprisoners have been campaigning for the rights of these brothers and
sisters and will continue to do so. However the priority is to get them
help, regardless of the organisation people wish to contribute to. The
fact will always remain that this work requires the spiritual, physical
and financial support of the Ummah. Please donate generously to help our
work continue inshallah, Jazakamullahkhayr:
Cageprisoners: http://www.cageprisoners.com/campaigns.php?id=378
HHUGS: www.hhugs.org.uk/donate.htm
(Helping Households Under Great Stress)

Moving House

If you are wondering why there have been next to none in terms of postings recently it is simply by and large due to being involved in an activity that I seriously recommend you avoid having to do too many times in your life.  Moving house.
The simple fact was that we needed a bigger place. Four kids stuffed into one room, with one of them starting secondary school was not the most convenient of circumstances, and with one bathroom between the seven of us, and the house in an almost constant state of disarray moving was beginning to look seriously attractive.
Moving house, however, is a mission.
Over the month of almost constant packing and the four days of over half a dozen fully laden van trips I look heart thinking about the suffering of the people of Lebanon and the rubbled remains of what many of them used to call home. For some reason seeing pictures of destroyed homes sickens me in away that even pictures of death does not. I think its because home has always been, at least mostly, a happy place for me. Its where I retire, and am happy to retire at the end of the day. It's where I find refuge and happiness with my family, and family, it seems, is so much at the heart of our religion. Well, at least I had a home and new one to move too, unlike those suffering in Lebanon. May Allah compensate them!
Over these weeks I have been thinking of some lessons from this whole experience of moving.
One of the thoughts that came to me is just how pathetic and facile creatures most of us are. To think how greatly I feel my life is enhanced by a couple more rooms and cupboards! I don't by this mean to praise naked ambition and the desire to amass lands and palaces, as if your ambition was more your condition would more worthy. In fact it is only more pathetic. No, it is that we are so easily pleased by some small worldly benefits, and so ready to abandon much for what is little. It is so clear that the increasingly terrible condition we find ourselves in on this planet today needs people to be devoted and dedicated and to sacrifice, but we are so easily placated with trinkets.
Then there is the amount of junk we accumulate. Piles of completely unnecessary garbage, yet we can't seem to able dispose of it either!It's like we want to convince ourselves that it really was/is/will be useful one day. How much money was spent and how many resources expended? And we are accountable for every atoms worth of it. Our children need Quran and iman, but we give them play and plastic! How unlike the Prophet about whom it was said that there was nothing in his house except cleanliness!
I don't mean any of this to be ungrateful to Allah. In fact I can assure you that I have experienced the truthfulness of the Prophet's words concerning the blessing of a spacious dwelling, may Allah bestow such upon you in this life and next, dear reader!
I take heart from one matter, which leads to Green tip number two, following the re-use, recycle mantra, I didn't go and buy lots of boxes, I reused old ones being chucked out by the local Iceland and Sommerfield.
Now all that remains is to unpack! That will probably take the next month or two. Hey, but at least I've got something to unpack and place to unpack it to!

Alhamdulillah.

Many paths to the Mountain Peak? Not likely.

This comment on my review of Karen Armstrong's book on Buddha deserves front page.
It covers some very important issues, and ultimately expresses the very reason I gave up on Buddhism. Jazakallah khair Ejaz!  (blue_stratos@hotmail.com)

Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh,

JazakAllah for that enlightening review (no pun intended). I myself have also studied the Buddhist religion somewhat, yet throughout their numerous sects spread about Asia, the core is still the same. From what is observable, to many people it may seem like the perfect set of beliefs i.e. you mentioned, "humanist".

Unfortunately for them and any other proponents of this view, a brief examination of the human condition shows how unstable the teachings of Buddhism and Humanism really are. Humanism, Atheism and Agnosticism are all fundamentally flawed in the same way simply because they make Insaan the reference point, the centre of their universe and the standard by which morality and a "good life" are defined. Such issues can be and undoubtedly are extremely complex because of the nature of mankind i.e. individuality and the free will given to us by Allah. No two people are alike. Some people like different foods, have different favourite colours, prefer different methods of transport, have separate styles of clothing, possess different thought processes, have different levels of education, have different sets of beliefs and have grown up in different environments which will undoubtedly affect their ways of thinking and also influence for them what they believe to be right and wrong. Thus everyone’s view of the right thing to do will undoubtedly differ to some degree. How can any harmony be attained in such a society?

These are all facts and you will not find anyone who will deny this. Yet at the same time when it comes to morality, what one judges to be good or bad and what one believes to be his or her purpose in life there are still countless who reply with "it's up to you" or "it's a personal matter and it's decided by the individual". How can anyone with an ounce of common sense reconcile the two points just made? Firstly acknowledging diversity and individuality and then attributing true morality's measure to beings that are so vastly different from each other?? For these people it seems, adding two and two refers to nothing more than a simple mathematical calculation.

Giving an example would better illustrate this point. We can make a comparison between current thoughts of morality among many disbelievers, with certain scientific facts. Say for example two scientists debated over the speed of light, which is known to be 300,000 km/s. One argued that it was 300,000 km/s; the other argued it was 400,000 km/s. It is obvious that one is clearly wrong. Yet if we were to draw parallels between this and how humanists and buddhists attempt to attribute the definition of morality and "good" to the ever varying human race, it would be like someone telling the two scientists, "Oh, your both right as long as you both agree that the speed of light is extremely fast". 

Well..... Unfortunately "extremely fast" doesn't quite cut it. "Extremely fast" won't enable you to study relativity, "extremely fast" won't enable you to further the study of almost every field of physics, "extremely fast" will not allow you to calculate dates, chart the cosmos and build telescopes, "extremely fast" will not allow you build fibre optic circuitry and so on and so forth. I think you get the idea. This simple "constant", because that is what it is and has been accepted as without question, has enabled us to further countless other areas of science. We wouldn't be with a lot of things we have today, without it.

In the SAME way, accepting every single wayward ideology, thought, belief, deity, set of morals and definitions of "good" CANNOT be accepted as universal truths simply because they “sound right” or are pleasing to an individual or set of individuals. Not only is this belittling the difference between true right and wrong, but its also ultimately a figurative middle finger gesture towards the most important issue in existence whether it is acknowleged or not, "What is our purpose in being?". Accepting every belief (by which I mean as mentioned, ideology, thought, religious belief, deity, etc..)  will NOT solve mankind’s problems today. Accepting every belief will NOT allow society to flourish and further itself in every way. Accepting every belief will not allow us to move beyond “me” and live as an Ummah. Accepting every belief will not bring us peace, happiness and salvation in our lives. Most importantly by accepting everything we will ultimately be rejecting truth, making us unable to save ourselves from the Hell-Fire and enter His Jannah.

Ironically, those who accept this way of thinking are the ones who point the finger at religion as the root cause of violence and war in the world today. How blind has Allah made them, when in fact it is what they believe that is the real reason that the people fight each other.  We must reflect upon this if we are to truly understand it. "And none will reflect except people of understanding" as Allah the All-Mighty says in the Qur'an.

SubhanAllah when the arguments of the disbelievers are broken down in such a manner, we are able to see how deep in error they really are. The point made is so basic yet remains something they chose to remain so blind to. "Deaf, dumb and blind they are, and so they do not return (to the straight path)" Allah says at the beginning of Surah Baqarah.

As Allah created us, so He knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows the nature upon which we were created. He shaped us and moulded us both in mind and body to be different in every sense. It is for this reason that from the creation of Adam right until the death of Muhammad (saw), the Creator periodically would send a Prophet to guide mankind out of the darkness their nature eventually took them back into without His guidance. The fitrah that one is born with can only take one so far. It is not the be all and end all but rather something that interacts with the teachings of it's Creator, setting the vessel it is within firmly upon a rightly guided path to success both in this short life and most importantly in the life that has no end. Without this guidance, it must compete with the equally if not more powerful desires each and every person has. This coupled with the whisperings of Shaytaan will eventually lead the individual to complete destruction and society as a whole into moral and social decay. If the disbelievers are to rely solely upon the shattered remnants of their fitrah for guidance and moral coding, then this indeed is great folly. Eventually what little direction one had towards good will only give way to following one’s lusts and desires since there will be no sense of recompense for doing the right thing even though one many recognise an action to be right or just.

On a side note, actual Satanism is far more sinister than heavy metal bands, goat sacrifices on stone altars, rituals intending to summon the devil etc. Satanism is the only religion that is the complete antithesis of Islam. It demands that one submits him/herself totally only to him/herself, a complete worship of one’s desires. There is no concept of community or obedience. It is a belief system centred around the one individual who must do all he/she can to make sure he/she furthers themselves in their life regardless of the methods they employ . In fact the most important celebration in Satanism is none other than a person’s birthday as it is I quote “birthdate of one’s own god”. Aa’udhubillah. Believe it or not, but without Guidance from Allah this is exactly where everyone will eventually end up and much of mankind already has whether or not they take the Satanist title. May Allah save us from such a worthless and self-destructive existence. They wrong no-one but themselves.

The ultimate conclusion? It is clear that acceptance of all beliefs is nothing but a convenient way of sidestepping the most important and fundamental questions facing humanity. What are doing here? Do we have a higher purpose? Who beyond mankind can or will judge our actions? When we die will we ever again be anything more than just dust?

They are in desperate need of our da’wah, they are in desperate need of the Qur’an and they are in desperate need more than anything else, of the One who created them and will bring them back to life. Will we step up to the challenge of calling them away from the worship of either falsehood or themselves?

“But if they answer you not, then know that they only follow their own lusts. And who is more astray than one who follows his own lusts, without guidance from Allah? Verily! Allah guides not the people who are Dhalimun” (28:50)