musaafir-e dasht

Some students, in the last week's session of History of Ideas, were tempted to chalk out comparisons between certain philosophical ideas propounded by the Greeks and some teachings of Islam. Dr Shafi, however, asked us to be on our guard against making such comparisons. He said that we need to keep the two traditions apart as they were essentially different from each other as far as their epistemological sources were concerned. Here, what he meant was that one tradition originated in human reason, and the source of the other was wahi (revelation). Conflating the two could lead to serious error of judgement and thought. The most beautiful thought that he put across was that our tradition was regulated by the paradigm of muhabbah (Love). Being lovers, we do not question the Beloved with a 'why' of inquiry. All we have to do is to carry out the command of the Beloved ... I wonder how our problems would have vanished altogether had we realised this seemingly simple p...

Abbaji, my paternal grandfather, Hakeem Muhammad Idrees Khan, passed away on 24 Ziqa’ad, 1432 AH (October 23, 2011). He was 88 years old - the last grandparent I had. He studied at the famous Tibyya College , Delhi, and remained a practicing Hakeem throughout his life. Allah had blessed him with so much shifa in his medicine that people used to come from far away places to get themselves treated. He lived an extremely humble life in a small town, Kaloor Kot, situated at approximately 4-5 hours drive from Multan. He was a disciple of his father-in-law, who we all lovingly remember as nanaji – another pious friend of God, Hafiz Abdul Ghafoor rahimahullah, who was given the khilafat by Hazrat Shah Abdul Raheem Raipuri, Hazrat Shah Abdul Qadir Raipuri, and Hazrat Munshi Rahmat Ali Jaalandhari (May Allah have mercy on all of them). Towards the end of Abbaji’s life, we often used to ask him if he was also given the khilafat by his Shaykh ( nanaji ) and he always evaded the question… It w...

I read about the following inspirational encounter between Mawlana Madni and Mawlana Ilyaas (rahimahumullah) in today's newspaper . It is so heartening to read about such incidents which reflect such purity of muhabbah  - love for Love's sake! subhaanAllah, indeed! SOURCE

Just came across a wonderful description of what the following of the sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wassallam actually means. A post on ashrafiya.com quotes Allama Syed Sulaiman Nadwi rahimahullah: "The following of Sunna (itaba’ e Sunnat) is not limited to changing the external appearance and attire only.The complete (kamil) following of Sunna entails that the thoughts, aspirations, emotional feelings and desires all become subservient to the Prophet’s (Allah bless him and grant him peace) taste (zauq). Tazkerah e Suleman, page 334" Is it not the case that when we truly love someone, we almost unconsciously become like them in all possible ways of conducting our lives? Our actions and thoughts begin reflecting our deep sense of association with the beloved. Love is probably the most inexplicable of all phenomena related to the lives of human beings...

... that we must long for, and that is evident in the following poem of Iqbal. source ہسپانیہ ہسپانیہ تو خون مسلماں کا امیں ہے  مانند حرم پاک تو ہے میری نظر میں پوشیدہ تیری خاک میں سجدوں کے نشان ہیں خاموش اذانیں ہیں تیری باد سحر میں  روشن تھیں ستاروں کی طرح ان کی سنانیں خیمے تھے کبھی جن کے تیرے کوہ و کمر میں  پھر تیرے حسینوں کو ضرورت ہے حنا کی؟  باقی ہے ابھی رنگ میرے خون جگر میں! کیونکر خس و خاشاک سے دب جاۓ مسلمان مانا وہ  تب و تاب و نہیں اس کے شرر میں! غرناطہ بھی دیکھا میری آنکھوں نے و لیکن تسکین مسافر نہ سفر میں حضر میں دیکھا بھی دکھایا  بھی سنایا بھی سنا بھی ہے دل کی تسلّی نہ نظر میں نہ خبر میں -اقبال 

On Wednesday, at the end of our Postcolonial Studies class, our teacher, Mr Tayyab Zaidi, asked all of us as to how exactly we "faced the book." A unique way of putting it, indeed. The question was followed by a brief discussion as to what did we do in response to the entire facebook episode. The teacher then remained quiet for sometime while we - the students - indulged in a brief conversation about various issues such as the advantage or uselessness of forwarding text messages about the issue etc. The discussion ended when I rephrased a statement given by a religious scholar when the Danish cartoons were published. I won't repeat what I said, but will copy here what he actually said before I write down the response of my teacher. So here goes, Our beloved shaykh (DB) mentioned about 5 years ago when the Denmark issue occurred, “When the world wants to boycott this country or these products for their wrongs, then that is in its own place.  However, if you really want to ...

Auliya Allah (the friends of Allah) always have a wonderful way of explaining things. Even their silences are filled with meaning that is never exhausted. In today's lecture, Maulana Ibrahim Saheb said something so profound that it actually answered so many of my questions. He was emphasizing on the practice of the sunnah of Rasul-Allah sallAllahu alaihe wassalam, when he explained as to how Love is the only driving force behind 'amal (practice). His words are still resonating in my heart and mind: ...عشق کبھی دلیل نہیں مانگتا. عاشق کا کام بس عمل کرنا ہوتا ہے

I have my TESL exam tomorrow. For the past two days I have been wrecking my brains with teaching techniques, more teaching techniques and yes... more than many teaching techniques. Huh. I really don't feel good about it. Okay, I agree there must be a lot of truth to what these techniques propose, however, I feel there is something which eludes all of them... And while reading about all these 'techniques', I am constantly being reminded of this verse by Iqbal which one our teachers also recites quite often: Woh faizan-e nazar tha ya ke maktab ki karamat thi Sikhaaye kis ne Isma'il ko aadaab-e farzandi! - Iqbal How I wish there be a 'teaching technique' that takes into account the miracles of Faizan-e Nazar...

I have always highly admired Amjad Islam Amjad's exceptional talent for composing nazm . The following is, however, what he has titled as a Na'atiya Nazm in his collection, Baarish ki Aawaaz . It is beautiful, indeed. Poets are poets because they externalise our internal feelings and thoughts by transforming them into words. And words undoubtedly are too valuable at times... Na'atiya Nazm Amjad Islam Amjad Yeh jo bay-rung si bay-aab si aati hai nazar Issi miTTi pe paRa karte thay vo noor qadam Jin ki aahaT ka tasalsul hai yeh saara aalam Jin ki khushboo mein haray rehte hain dil ke mausam Jis ki hairat se bharay rehtay hain khwabon ke nagar Vo jo ik tang sa rasta hai Hira ki jaanib! Uss ke phailaao mein konayn simaT jaatay hain Aankh mein chaaron taraf rung se lehraatay hain Paa'on khud jis ki taraf khinchte chalay jatay hain Yehi jaada hai jo jaata hai Khuda ki jaanib Kitni sadiyon se mussallat tha koi shak mujh per Apnay hone ki gav...

I just saw a picture of the janaazah of Maulana Sarfaraz Khan Safdar... and I feel overwhelmed. Not by the sight of the masses that thronged his hometown but the feeling as to how meaningful a lives some people spend... Not only their lives are so full of meaning, even their deaths are also never without it! Probably it is for such a death that Iqbal wrote: ...maut kya shae hai faqat 'aalam-e ma'ani ka safar! ****

When death and life seem to be intertwined... Maut ko samjhay hain ghaafil ikhtitaam-e zindagi Hay yeh shaam-e zindagi subh-e davaam-e zindagi -Iqbal Decisions. Life. Times when one has to go beyond one's self. Times when one has to submit. Point where resignation is followed by resuscitation. Point where one has to submit to one's Lord telling Him that 'now, I submit'... for Love's sake. Foregoing love for Love's sake. Giving oneself over to Allah. A point where the limitations of tadabeer are made clear to us. A man's worth indeed lies in the recognition of his worthlessness... Bar tar az andesha-e sood-o ziyaan hai zindagi Hay kabhi jaan aur kabhi tasleem-e jaan hai zindagi -Iqbal

In the name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate Becoming Muslim © Nuh Ha Mim Keller Born in 1954 in the farm country of the northwestern United States , I was raised in a religious family as a Roman Catholic. The Church provided a spiritual world that was unquestionable in my childhood, if anything more real than the physical world around me, but as I grew older, and especially after I entered a Catholic university and read more, my relation to the religion became increasingly called into question, in belief and practice. One reason was the frequent changes in Catholic liturgy and ritual that occurred in the wake of the Second Vatican Council of 1963, suggesting to laymen that the Church had no firm standards. To one another, the clergy spoke about flexibility and liturgical relevance, but to ordinary Catholics they seemed to be groping in the dark. God does not ch...