Tagheyyur.

It is a common notion that Quaid-e-Azam united Muslims of India but it is hardly ever acknowledged that the Muslims of India were an organic entity and it was growing on its own terms especially after 1857. This aspect is discussed in depth in my teacher's book "Azaadi" in which he describes painstakingly how Muslim Nation evolved and Pakistan came into being. I am by no means diminishing Quaid's role in freedom movement, no. What I mean to highlight is the Muslims of India had developed their intuition and they were growing onto that. Quaid himself always believed that the people had bestowed the power upon him and not vice versa. He acknowledged this principle number of times. For example, when he was proposing the 14 points for Muslim League he clearly conveyed that these are only suggestions based upon numerous meetings with different minority groups within India and it is unto these groups whether they accept them or reject them.  Here, in below responses al...

“Nations are born in the heart of a poet, they prosper and die in the hands of a politician.” Stray Reflections .   Today we, the Pakistani nation, proudly boast of being the nation who was born in the heart of one of the greatest poet of world history. Dr. AllamaIqbal stands tall among the giants who go on living despite of having ceased to exist in the world. Iqbal is one of those people who personify the concept of immortality. After many decades of his death, he still lives in many forms among us; through his written work, his services, and his ideas. He is among those few people who are cherished and owned equally by East and West and his work has been researched and appraised by scholars around the world. Today I am going to look into one of the many facets, which make him a legend. I want us to remember why we need him now and what he has to offer us in these trying times. When I started studying AllamaIqbal, the thing that struck me most was the gra...

Ibn Rajab writes (in verse form): ♦ ‘O you who were not content to sin just in Rajab; But disobeyed your Lord, even in Sha‘ban. The fasting month has come now to shade you, Turn it not into a month of sinfulness too. Recite the Qur’an and glorify God, diligently; For it is the month of glorification and Qur’an. Deny bodily appetites, seeking salvation through it; For soon bodies shall be consumed by the Fire. How many you knew who fasted previously: From among family, neighbours and brothers. Death obliterated them, leaving you to live on; How close are the the living to those who are dead. You take pride in your  ‘ Id clothes, cut to fit; Yet the morrow they will be your burial shrouds! Until when will man dwell in his place of dwelling? Knowing his ultimate abode is the grave.’ 1 ≈ 1.  Lata’if al-Ma‘arif  (Riyadh: Dar Ibn Khuzaymah, 2007), 351-2.

  The following piece was first published on this blog, on 28th August, 2012. It  has been edited and republished at  www.islamicate.co.uk  and reposted here with kind permission. There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self,’ said Aldous Huxley, the English novelist best known for his dystopian novel,  Brave New World. In his exploration of the dilemmas confronting modern man – the rise of capitalism, the dehumanising demands of technology and progress and the cult of self-worship and instant gratification – Huxley hits on many truisms in his chilling forecasts to the modern world. This month will see Muslims the world over observe the fasts of Ramadan. Ramadan, essentially, is the month in which believers are required to buckle down more consciously and improve their own ‘corner of the universe.’ The month is marked by heightened religious observance and also a keener sense of social cohesion, a...

By Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani (db) Extracted from The Month of Rajab, Part 1 & Part 2 Rajab is the seventh month in the Islamic lunar calendar. This month was regarded as one of the sacred months (Al-Ashhur-al-hurum) in which battles were prohibited in the days of the Holy Prophet صلي الله عليه وسلم  . It is also deemed to be a prelude to the month of Ramadan, because the month Ramadan follows it after the intervening month of Sha’ban. Therefore, when the Holy Prophet صلي الله عليه وسلم  sighted the moon of Rajab, he used to pray Allah in the following words: اللهم بارك لنا في رجب وشعبان وبلغنا رمضان O Allah, make the months of Rajab and Sha’ban blessed for us, and let us reach the month of Ramadan (i.e. prolong our life upto Ramadan, so that we may benefit from its merits and blessings). Although the month of Rajab has aforesaid merits, yet no specific way of worship has been prescribed by the Shari’ah in this month. However, some people have invented some ...

[The following is the transcript from the video khutbah of Shaykh Yasir Qadhi on the Syrian crisis.  The transcript includes slight modifications for the sake of readability and clarity.] Part 1 My dear brothers and sisters in Islam, one of the very few lands that our Prophet   has mentioned in numerous traditions, and in fact even before him, Allāh  has mentioned by reference in the Qur'ān is the land of Shām, which is now the land of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Filistīne.  This land clearly our tradition, our religion has emphasized it like no other land after the land of Ḥijāz.  There is no question that Mecca and Madīnah, the land of Ḥijāz, is the most sacred land on earth, but after the Ḥijāz comes the land of Syria. Allāh  Himself praises it in the Qur'ān in the beginning of Sūrat'l-Isrā' when He says, “masjid'l-Aqṣa, the land that We have blessed around it.”  Allāh  says that masjid'l-Aqṣa is holy, and not just the masjid but the l...

Image source Colonial Invasion & State Structures. Loss of self-confidence in Muslims is justifiably related to defeats on the battlegrounds at the hands of west. But a military defeat is not enough to enslave hearts and minds, as it can be an impetus for revenge. Today Muslims are envious of West’s power, which proves the fact that the real challenge of west is not of materialism, but of intellectualism (which modernity certainly lacks in the true sense of the world). However, what happened after the first phase of colonial invasion? How did colonials succeed in subduing large populations in vast areas? We’ve partial answers. Realizing the danger that native “monkeys” might overrun them by sheer numbers, colonizers had to play the games of perceptions and mind control. They had to look big and strong. Few in numbers, they developed railway and laid communication systems to travel fast over the huge mass of land to subdue any possible mutiny, which did take place and ...

I am talking of millions of men who have been skillfully injected with fear, inferiority complexes, trepidation, servility, despair, abasement. —Aimé Césaire, Discours sur le Colonialisme The independence movements in colonies and protectorates came into being, not through a return to indigenous values on the part of those concerned, but through the absorption of occidental ideas and ideologies, liberal or revolutionary … the process of modernization – a euphemism for Westernization – far from being halted by the withdrawal, was in fact accelerated. The enthusiasm of the new rulers for everything ‘modern’ was not restrained, as had been the enthusiasm of their former masters, by any element of self-doubt. —Gai Eaton, Islam and the Destiny of Man The celebrated Algerian psychologist freedom fighter of blacks, Franz Fanon, saw only two parties in the battle between the colonialists and colonized: white and black. We, the brown, had pretty benign colonizers, w...