The vastness of Allah’s creation

The vastness of Allah’s creation

Antares is the 15th brightest star in the sky. It is more than 1000 light years away.

The nearest star to us is approx 4 light years away.

I heard a story once, which I am paraphrasing. I don’t know of it’s authenticity but it is as follows:

Once Musa(AS) spoke to Allah(swt) and said to Allah, that “Oh Allah, you created all this(i.e, the Earth, its oceans, its land, the animals and every living thing, the heavens, the stars, the moon etc…) What was the purpose of all this creation?”

So Allah(swt) the Lord of the worlds, in order to demonstrate the vastness of His creation replied as follows:

Allah(swt) said “O Musa, I have got one Beast. And this Beast can consume the whole of this (i.e the whole universe) as one morsel of food. And not only have I got this one beast, but I have got many of these beasts, in a place of which only I know”

SUBHANALLAH!!!! Glorified be Allah! The creator of everything

And what is our significance before all this, yet it is mentioned that when a person is in prostration, that person is closest to Allah, as he is prostrating at the feet of Allah, the Most Merciful.

Calculation of a light year

A light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles (9,460,800,000,000 kilometers).

Let’s say that a star is 1 million light years away. The light from that star has traveled at the speed of light to reach us. Therefore, it has taken the star’s light 1 million years to get here, and the light we are seeing was created 1 million years ago. So the star we are seeing is really how the star looked a million years ago, not how it looks today.

In the same way, our sun is 8 or so light minutes away. If the sun were to suddenly explode right now, we wouldn’t know about it for eight minutes because that is how long it would take for the light of the explosion to get here.

NOW is the Time to Learn Arabic!

NOW is the Time to Learn Arabic!

An excellent article by sister Amatullah in which she has collated information and resources essential for a student beginning on the path to learning the language of the Qur’an. Arabic.

She mentions the importance of learning the Arabic language by mentioning some verses of the Qur’an. She then talks about the method and the path the student of knowledge should pursue in this journey to understanding the beautiful language. She gives some handy tips and very good advice and the article is full of very useful and essential links of resources which will prove very useful for the student whilst embarking on this lengthy, yet rewarding journey.

We ask Allah to reward her well with good both in this world and in the hereafter, and that Allah gives her the ability to do more so that we may continue to benefit from the knowledge she imparts, inshaAllah. May Allah forgive us all and accept all of our deeds and make us all the companions of the Qur’an. Ameen.

This article can be found on her blog on the following link http://tayyibaat.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/now-is-the-time-to-learn-arabic/

Alim course for adults in Leicester, UK

A Ramadhan Message – from Imam Anwar al-Awlaki

A Ramadhan Message

From Imam Anwar al-Awlaki

Assalamu alaykum All,

Ramadan Mubarak to all of you. We ask Allah to guide us to the best deeds and to accept from us our fasting and prayers.

Ramadan is the month of the Quran and generosity. Ibn Abbas says: “I have never seen anyone more generous than Rasullullah(saw), and he would be most generous in Ramadan when Gibril(as) would read the Quran with him”

Imam Malik used to close the books of hadith and fiqh in Ramadan and devote his time to the Quran.

Allah(swt) says: “The month of Ramadan in which the Quran was revealed.” So the revelation of the Quran began in Ramadan.

Therefore dear brothers and sisters we should focus on the Quran during the holy month.

Let’s not forget too that the month of Ramadan was a time when great battles were fought such as the battle of the criterion, the battle of Badr, and the greatest conquest, the opening of Makkah. There is also the important battle that saved the Muslims from the Mongol invasion, the battle of Ayn Jalut. So we should not forget our brothers who are carrying on this duty today from our dua and support.
Lastly, we need to keep in mind that while we are enjoying the blessing of freedom and having iftar with our families that we have thousands of brothers behind bars and only Allah knows what conditions they are in and there are thousands of families who are deprived the presence of their loved ones. Lets pray for them during this blessed month.

O Allah free our Muslim brothers from the prisons of the tyrants and shower on them and their families Your mercy. O Allah accept our good deeds and forgive us our mistakes.

wassalamu alaykum,

[Source: Imam Anwar's blog]

How to prepare oneself for Ramadhan

How to prepare oneself for Ramadhan

Click here to Listen (to save right-click and save target as)

This is a talk that was given on radio by Imam Zaid Shakir (Hafidhullah) in which he gives excellent advice on how we can best prepare ourselves for the blessed month of Ramadhan.

He expounds that Ramadhan is not only a month in which one gives up their food and drink, remaining hungry from pre-dawn till dusk, but rather this month is much more than just that. It is a month of Spirituality in which a believer is given the opportunity to gain a closeness to Allah(swt) not only by fulfilling the obligatory acts and increase in other types of worship such as charity and recitation of the Qur’an etc…, but more than just that by abstaining from sins and acts of disobedience.

Abstention from sins is all the more important in this month, in particular abstaining from sins related to the faculties of hearing, seeing, thinking and speaking. This is a month of purification in which we as believers are given the opportunity to cleanse ourselves of our sins and purify ourselves both physically and spiritually, through fasting and increased worship.

So fasting is not just to abstain from food and drink, but also to prevent our ears from hearing forbidden things such as irreligious songs and music, to prevent our eyes from viewing forbidden things, to prevent ourselves to the best of our ability from thinking about sinful things and finally last but not least to safeguard the tongue, ‘the boneless wonder’ which is responsible for and has so many sins related to it, such as lying, backbiting, slandering, gossiping etc… It is very important to safeguard the tongue from sins in this month, and it is for this reason why one of the pious predecessors used to refer to Ramadhan as ‘The Month of Silence’.

May Allah(swt) allow us all to gain the full blessings from this month and make it a month of reformation for us, so that we once and for all abandon disobedience to our Creator and become His(swt) obedient, pious and sincere servants. Ameen

“And ask forgiveness for your sins and also for the believing men and believing women” (Qur’an 47:19)

Dua for our sister

Dua for our sister

(Left: Pre-2002, Right: Recent picture)

Our sister Aafia Siddiqui (May Allah assist her and protect her) had been held prisoner for many years without trial in the notorious Bagram prison in Afghanistan. She was being held there as a ghost prisoner known only as ‘Prisoner 650’. Her screams reached the ears of many ex-inmates and visitors to the prison, who all claim that the screams still haunt them today.

From the accounts of ex-inmates who state that our sister was being held in Bagram prison where she was gang raped and tortured to such an extent that she lost her senses.

One ex-inmate described her condition as follows:

“there is a woman from Pakistan. She has stayed for years in solitary confinement in Bagram prison among more than 500 men. She goes out to the bathroom, led by a non-muslim man, placing his hand on one of her shoulders and the other hand on her back, and her hands and feet chained together, and she is treated exactly in the same way as a man, even in her clothing, the red suit that the brothers wear in Guantanamo.. This woman stayed there until she lost her mind, until she became insane, hitting the door and screaming day and night, and those ones all they do is make it worse by calling her by her number 650, that’s the number she had in the Bagram prison. And she didn’t find a person to talk to. She is in solitary confinement, in front of her is a solitary room belonging to a man, on her side is a solitary room belonging to a man, and next to her is a solitary room belonging to a man. She didn’t find a woman to talk to, she only sees men. So the woman lost her reasoning and mind and she stayed in this condition for many years, probably no one knew anything about her”

And now after many years she has suddenly reappeared from almost out of nowhere, with the ‘devils from amongst mankind’ with their distorted and twisted lies claiming that she was on the run and has now been captured. Our sister who has been through so much pain and suffering has now been transferred to a prison in the US and is appearing in court to face ‘the long arm of American Injustice’.

Our sister, the mother of 3 children whose whereabouts are unknown, has had her honour and dignity stripped, her sanctity violated. Our sister has been humiliated and disgraced. She is the very woman who safeguarded her chastity out of the fear of Allah, but the beasts did not even spare her in this. They have treated her worse than animals, in fact even an animal is given more rights.

A sigh of helplessness…

We all might feel helpless to do anything for ‘Our sister’, but one thing that we all have the power to do is to raise our hands before Almighty Allah and make a dua from the deepest recesses of our hearts, from this moment on in all our prayers until she is freed from captivity, and pray for ‘Our Sister’ Aafia Siddiqui, that Allah(swt) frees her and other innocent prisoners like her from the shackles of oppression, from the tyranny and injustice of the evil people. We pray to the Most Merciful Almighty Allah that He(swt) restores her respect, her honour and her dignity, and we pray that Allah(swt) reunites her with her children and her family, and relieves our oppressed sister of her pain and suffering, and removes her grief and her sorrow, replacing it with firmness, fortitude and strength of mind, body and spirit, and that He(swt) pours into her heart peace, tranquillity and contentment, and gives her the forbearance to forbear this unbearable trial with steadfastness and a beautiful patience. Allahumma Ameen.

To make dua for her is our duty and it is the very least that we can do for ‘Our sister’ Aafia Siddiqui.