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Category:
SOUND
This is translated from an oral lecture in Urdu given in 1994 by Mufti Taqi Usmani in Dar ul-Uloom Karachi, Pakistan. Today Karachi is the global center of Islamic scholarship of the Hanafi madhab (and with an advantage on all the other madhabs) for sheer number of Ulema, students, graduates awarded degrees, institutions, and books published. Much like how Baghdad or other cities were centers of Islamic scholarship in their respective eras (though they were the centers of ALL learning back then).
Most of his lectures in the Islahi Khutbat series are of a personal reformative nature, this is one of the few political pieces.
"He meant by this witty remark to say that whenever some vice arises anywhere in the world, the people try to attribute it to the Molvis. They try to find one fault or another with whatever the Molvi does. If the poor Molvi, sitting in seclusion is rehearsing Allah's name or is imparting lessons to his disciples from the Qur'an and the Hadith, the people raise objections to him saying that he is ignorant of what is happening in the world and what turns its affairs are taking. He has no time to get out of the closed dome of 'Bismillah'. On the other hand, if a Molvi comes out of his secluded corner for the sake of some reformatory or social work, they object to the Molvi's action by saying that the best occupation for a Molvi is to rehearse the name of Allah sitting within four walls of the Madrassah, but today he is involving himself in politics and government affairs. If there is a Molvi hard pressed for financial resources and has fallen a victim to poverty and starvation, the people blame him saying that he has made no arrangements for financial resources for his students by way of making them financially independent of others, when they leave the school the next day. How shall such students earn their living when they leave the school? If a Molvi by chance happens to be a rich man, possessing sufficient money, they taunt him with affluence and richness."
He is using Molvi as the condescending, almost derogatory, term for Ulema (who might even be Maulanas or Muftis). Not just your local Molvi who teaches kids how to recite Qur'an and leads prayers.
The Ulema contain Islam. Islam (Fiqh), Iman (Aqeedah), Ihsan (Sufism/Tasawuf)... these are all specialized in and propagated by the Ulema. Thus, "This class of Molvis is a shield for Islam". Rooting out the Madrassahs where they teach, or trying to eradicate their influence altogether will pretty much annihilate Islam from that area good and proper. Uprooting religious schools from Muslim lands will do more damage to Islam than if they had bombed that place off the face of the Earth. The next best strategy is to transform them into puppet Madrassahs espousing a form of Islam that is government-approved. For obvious reasons, this totally negates the entire purpose altogether. Especially since the governments have no connection to Islam.
"I have had the opportunity of visiting Baghdad. This is the city which has been the capital of the Islamic world for centuries. The world has seen there the spledour and grandeur of the Abbasid Caliphate. All sorts of arts and sciences developed and flourished there.
When I arrived there, I enquired from someone the address of some religious schools or the centre of religious knowledge and learning. I wanted to visit some of them. I was told that there was no trace of such religious institutions: all these have given way to modern schools and colleges. Now it is only the University faculties where religious education may be acquired. By looking at the dress, etc. of the professors, it is difficult even to acknowledge that they are Muslims, let alone their being Alims of the Islamic Shariah and Fiqh. These institutes follow the co-ed system as well. Islam has become only a theory which is taught as a historical philosophy. This system of education has no effect on the lives of its students. Their study of Islam in these Universities is like that of the orientalists. Today Islam is being taught in Universities in America, Canada and in other European counties and the courses of study include Hadith, Fiqh and Tafsir. If you read their articles and research papers on Islam, you will come to know the names of books about which our naive Molvis are quite in the dark. Apparently great reseach work is being done there on Islam. What is the good of a system of teaching Islam which fails to equip men with the wealth of Iman? All this research and intensive study day and night remain fruitless and the students' thirst for understanding Islam in its true perspective remains unquenched. No doubt there are faculties of Shariah and the principles of Deen in these Universities of the West, but the studies in these Western Universities have no impact on the lives of their students. This is because the essence of these sciences and courses of study has been totally annihilated.
Then I asked the people the names and addresses of some scholars having the older pattern of teaching and learning. I was told that there was a Maktab (religious school of the classical type) attached to a mosque near the tomb of Hazrat Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (ra), where a teacher of the old pattern of teaching lived and who had received education in the older system. I called upon that Ustad and found that he was really trained and educated on the older system and curricula. My contact with him made me feel that I had really met a righteous God-fearing saint. He had received education in the lowly old-type schools, sitting on mats and leading a hard life of want and scarcity. I could observe on his face the light of the sciences of the Islamic Shariah. From this interview I recieved spiritual inspiration and satisfaction."
"After formal introduction that saint asked me about my country and I told him that I had gone there from Pakistan. Thereafter he put to me a few questions about my Dar ul-Uloom and its curriculum. After I had given him some details about the Dar ul-Uloom he inquired of me about some of the books taught in the Dar ul-Uloom. When I told him the names of some of the books, he felt deeply impressed to hear the names of those books and expressed grief for having been deprived of the blessings contained in them. He said that those are the books that produce godly men and sincere Muslims. He asked me to convey a message from him to the scholars of Pakistan exhorting them never to abolish in any circumstances these schools."
This lecture was delivered in the early '90s so his visit must have been before Gulf War 1, when Iraq was well off. Look at its fate today.
"It is well known about the late poet of the east, Dr. Muhammad Iqbal that he used to make sarcastic remarks about the typical Mullah, except that from time to time he also said things disclosing the truth to the people. Referring to the attitude of the English and the enemies of Islam, he has written at one place in a couplet about Afghanis:
'If you want to eliminate the religious fervour of the Afghanis, then expel the Mullah from the hilly country that is Afghanistan. As long as the Mullah is there the love and fervour of the Afghanis for their Deen cannot be effaced from their hearts.'"
"A violent propaganda campaign has been launched against the religious schools, that their origin dates back to 1400 years ago. The administrators and the teaching staff are outmoded and old-fashioned. They are retrogressive, unaware of modern trends and developments of the world. They do not know how to live in this world according to the modern demands of life, nor have they equipped themselves with the modern scientific technology. These retrogrades want to shift the Muslim Ummah into the reverse gear. Such slogans have been raised from time to time. Their echo is again being heard in our country in full volume.
New force has been added to these slogans by alleging that these religious Madaris have turned into terrorist shelters and they are averse to progress. They are being defined variously with titles like fundamentalists, narrow-mindedness, retrogrades and many other blames are showered on this poor Molvi. The Molvi however, is firm and adamant in his stern attitude and stand."
"My respected father used to say that the Molvi is a die-hard. He is ready to tolerate all taunts, however severe they may be. He is able to put up with all types of adverse situations. This is because one who enters the field of religious life and Islamic activities, he girds up his loins to bear all hardships and taunts from all quarters. He, therefore, enters this thorny field of Deen, prepared to welcome with a good grace all pleasant and unpleasant situations that confront him in the path of Deen.
The idea contained in this line of Urdu poetry is that the path of Allah is difficult and only that person will walk on it who has the courage to face difficulties and give up ease and comforts of life.
A man gifted with an eye capable of seeing realities will readily recognize that these adverse remarks and taunts are in the nature of an ornament for one who preaches the way of Truth. These are taunts that were directed to the Prophets of Allah (as) and their successors and followers. These taunts will not stop, but will continue till the Day of Judgement."
"Voices are being raised today in our society that these religious schools should be closed. There are men who lend support to this demand, not out of opposition and enmity, but out of sympathy and by way of reform.
Sometimes people suggest that these Molvis should be trained for some jobs for earning their livelihood. Therefore, people come forward with proposals including the establishment of workshops for the benefit of the Molvi. My respected father (ra) used to advise that anxiety about the livelihood of these Molvis should be given up, because the Molvis shall themselves solve the problem of their livelihood. You can, he said, cite no case in which a Molvi ever took his own life on account of starvation. My father said: I can give examples of many people with doctorates and masters degrees who have committed suicide on account of financial difficulties. There are also many who hold these degrees, yet they are not finding employment. This cannot be asserted about a Molvi that he is facing unemployment. Almighty Allah the Creator and Sustainer by His infinite mercy, looks after the livelihood of His creatures much better than others."
He relates the story of Sahool Usmani (ra), a reknowned professor of the original Dar ul-Uloom in Deoband, India. He was very well-versed in the field of literature and he thought he might get another job to make money and work in the path of Deen for free. He obtained permission from his superiors to get a job teaching at a government school since that only required 2 to 3 hours of work a week giving lectures with not much preparatory work involved (as opposed to in the Dar ul-Uloom where each day 5 hours of teaching required 10 hours of preparation beforehand). After he spent some time doing this, he reported back to his elders and lamented that he had wound up accomplishing much less in this new lifestyle. That is to say that the environment of a religious school, both physically and spiritually, is blessed and is much more conducive to doing work in the path of Deen. Much more is usually accomplished there in a smaller amount of time and many books are written and published out of these places.
He also mentions how the Dar ul-Ulooms and other Madrassahs (the proper graduate school level) are gigantic institutions running on no income or budget. Yet they are always able to make ends meet, despite expenses that run into the thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. In fact, there are Dar ul-Ulooms being opened in America and the UK doing the same thing. In the UK, 80% of the new clerics graduating from religious schools there are from Deobandi-associated Dar ul-Uloom-type institutions. Unfortunately those 20% get put on TV instead. He says the people claim no credit for this, it is Allah who runs these institutions by his Mercy and by virtue of the prayers of the righteous saints and God-fearing ulema.
If the thought of foreign donors (Saudi Wahabbis) injecting money into these Madrassahs by way of donations comes to mind, it doesn't apply for Dar ul-Uloom at least. They are strictly Sunni and follow the Hanafi madhab. They are quite critical of Ahl-e-Hadith (Wahabis, Salafis, etc.) and they (Saudis) in turn would rather fund their own Madrassahs (which have lost influence in recent times to the traditional kind... another miracle since there's no such thing as a marketing department in these things). They also rarely, if ever, ask for donations. It goes against their principles of avoiding begging. A few Deobandi Muftis who ran ShariahBoard in the US had gone so far as to close their operation rather than ask for donations (in Western communities, you usually need to ask via fancy fundraisers) so some of the community interceded and raised funds for them.
They are run on the principle that if they ever feel external pressure and feel that they are being forced to violate the Shariah or disgrace the Deen, they'll simply immediately shut it down rather than continue.
A nice anecdote:
"Hazrat Abu Hurayrah (ra) tells of his own hunger that he used to remain in the company of the Holy Prophet (saw) and often would fall down at the door of the Masjid Nabawi worn down from sheer hunger. People would think that he was having an epileptic fit and would pass over his neck because it was believed in those times that anyone suffering from epilepsy would recover if someone passed over his neck placing his foot there. He adds, 'By Allah! Neither had I epileptic fits nor did I suffer from convulsions or unconsciousness. It was hunger, very severe, that made me very weak and unable to rise.' This is how Hazrat Abu Hurayrah (ra) lived and went on to collect and transmit to us five thousand three hundred and sixty-four Ahadith, the highest by any person."
Abu Hurayrah (ra) was part of Ahl-us-Suffah, the first group of 'students' in Islam who made it their business to spend all their time studying every facet of the Prophet Muhammad (saw)'s behaviour, sayings, and teachings. They were so named because they sat on a platform in the Masjid Nabi called 'suffah' which one can still see there today. That suffah was the first Madrassah in the history of Islam.
^(all of the above quotes translated from oral lecture in Urdu)
Category:
SOUND
"In my opinion, two causes stand in the way of implementing the Islamic Shariah and both are concerned with the trend of thinking:
The first cause: Negligence in the reform and personality-building of the individual Muslim, and undertaking social and collective activities without reforming the individuals.
The second cause: Sincere and thoughtful research work is needed on the subject of implementing Islam [in this age] and adequate work has not been done in this field."
-Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani in 1993 on the Afghan civil war and the rise and fall of many youth/student-driven Islamic movements around the world
In another lecture, he related how he was on a flight and struck up friendly conversation with the person sitting next to him. When they served food he noticed the man was obeying the usual custom of holding the fork in the left hand. When he told him he would be entitled to great reward if he followed the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet(saw) and ate with his right, the man said that these sort of inane matters that the molvis dwelled on were holding back the Muslims from emulating the success of the Western nations which had leaped far ahead. Mufti Usmani replied asking how far ahead he had gotten and how much more progress had he made in the time since he had began eating this way. Obviously, the guy had no response. When he told him that the only way for the Muslims to catch up was to turn back to the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet(saw), the man protested again saying that the Western nations did everything counter to the Sunnah and enjoyed great success and they did this because of the fact they were opposed to the Shariah (that it was backwards).
So Mufti Usmani related a story to him about a wise man in a village. In the village, a man climbed a date palm tree and had become stuck. He called for help and when the villagers got there they had no idea on how to get him down. So they went and asked the wise man. He told them to throw a rope up there, have him tie it around his waist, then pull down the rope. When they did that, the man fell out of the tree and died. When they told the wise man what happened he said he didn't know why he died, perhaps it was his destiny to die then and there. He said he had used the same method to pull people out of wells many times without incident.
That's the best analogy I've read to describe the state of Muslims today and how they are attempting progress.
The Islamic World was and still is in a different predicament than the West, one that requires a different solution. Those who think that success is possible by emulating the West and indulging in sins, disobedience, and actions counter to the Sunnah are incorrect. It is impossible for Muslims to do that. Even if they emulated the West 100%, as long as they were believers, they could not succeed. If, however, they lost their Islam and belief, then they could do as the West does and emulate their progress. This is also true in a way on the micro, personal/individual level.
The only way for Muslims to achieve progress and advancement is by sticking to the principles of their own civilization (the Sunnah) which is altogether different from the Western way. After all, the original Muslims leapfrogged the world with just one book, the Qur'an, while we can't do anything with thousands of books today.
Category:
SOUND
"Abdullah bin Mubarak (ra) was an eminent jurist, scholar of Hadith and Sufi of high calibre. He was a contemporary of Imam Abu Hanifah (ra) and his student too. Before he turned to religion he was a very rich and free-thinking man. He had many properties, including gardens but he was not interested in learning or religion. He was an alcoholic much interested in singing and dancing. Among his gardens, he also had apple gardens. Once he took his friends to one such garden when the apples were ready to pick. There they had plenty of food and wine together with the fresh apples, and music. He himself was a good musicion and played very well. They had satiated themselves with food and were deeply intoxicated, the atmosphere was pleasant. Abdullah bin Mubarak had a guitar in his hands and he played it. He fell asleep. When he woke up, he still had the guitar in his hands. He began to play it again but it would not work. It did not produce any sound. So, he fiddled with the threads and wires and tried again but it did not omit any sound. He tried it a third time after some more fiddling with it. This time it did work but, instead of producing music, it reproduced the sound of the following verse of the Qur'an:
'Has not the time yet come for those who believe, and their hearts should be humble for the remembrance of Allah and the Truth.' (57:16)
The guitar gave out this sound. When Allah wishes to guide any of His servants then He provides such Unseen means too. The moment Abdullah bin Mubarak heard this voice, his heart accepted the Truth, and he answered the words of the verse: 'Surely, my Lord! It has arrived!'
This is the same Abdullah bin Mubarak who when visiting Baghdad during the reign of Harun al-Rashid, the Caliph heard a loud commotion from the outskirts of the city. Fearing an attack, the Caliph asked a man to find out what had happened. The man reported back that Abdullah bin Mubarak had sneezed and had said 'Praise be to Allah', and the crowd that had gathered to welcome him responded with 'May Allah have mercy on you' and the sound he had heard was of this, the crowd's response (indicating its large size and his esteemed position to attract such a crowd)."
-Mufti Taqi Usmani
(translated from oral lecture in Urdu)
Category:
SOUND
"You may build large houses, hire many servants, have at your disposal large limousines, but, with all those luxuries, when you lie down on your bed at night, sleep eludes you although the bed on which you lie is the best available, the mattress the most superior and the pillows most ideal. You keep awake all night, now turning to the right, now to the left. You have to take sleeping pills to induce sleep but the pills lose their power after some time. We see here that all the means of comfort are available but none of these can help get the most wanted, yet elusive, sleep. These means are ineffective in removing restlessness. Only Allah can help remove it. On the other side of the world there is the labourer who has neither a worthy bed to sleep on nor a proper room yet when he goes to sleep he wakes up after eight hours of sound sleep. Now, decide for yourself who is comfortable, the labourer or the rich man? Remember, only Allah grants comfort. The means to comfort cannot provide it. Contentment and comfort are not something that may be bought although the means of comfort may be bought at will."
-Mufti Taqi Usmani
(translated from oral lecture in Urdu)
Category:
SOUND
"They are unique people that during the nights they are devoted monks and during the day they are the best archers, swordsmen, and fighters."
-Byzantine soldier commenting on the Muslims at the Battle of Yarmouk
Category:
STRONG
Most people start doing namaz in one of either two ways. By namaz, I mean concentrating on doing the five daily prayers and keeping them at high priority while making sure to make up any missed ones. Either they are instilled with the habit by their parents or they reach a turning point sometime later in their adult lives when they start doing all 5 prayers.
However, a Muslim is still responsible for all of the fardh prayers, regardless of whether or not they felt like doing them. The age at which prayer becomes mandatory is puberty, and if the exact year isn't known, 14's an okay number. In the Middle East and South Asia they use 15, and 13 would make more sense in North America and Europe.
So, calculate (erring on the liberal side) how many prayers you've missed. If you consistently did 4 prayers a day, then add up one prayer per day until you started doing 5. If you did none at all for three or four years then started doing all 5, add those up. For example, if you started doing 5 a day when you were 19 and were into puberty by 13 or 14, you would do 19-13=6 years,6*365=2190 days,2190*5=10,975 prayers. You have around 11,000 prayers that must be made up before you die. The best way to approach this is to offer the compensating prayers in place of nafil prayers (though not Sunnah, which should still be done). In addition, it is allowed to do makeup prayers after Asr and after Fajr, times usually forbidden for optional prayers. So for instance, at Fajr time you would do your 2 rakahs of Sunnah and Fardh each, then a makeup prayer for a Fajr. And a makeup for Zuhr after Zuhr and so on. This way you're making up prayers on a day by day basis... 2190 days worth of prayers will be made up in 2190 days exactly. On top of that, you can do a series of 5 during Tahajjud time before Fajr, so that cuts the amount of time in half and so on. It's also a strong Sunnah to keep a will and regardless of your age it's a good idea to keep a will where you lay out to your next of kin that you have such and such an amount of prayers to be made up via donating to charity from what you had left behind up to 1/3rd of your assets.
Category:
STRONG
How does bringing up random economic terms have anything to do with his question? I'm sure economics is interesting as hell, but the principles behind interest don't involve all of it.
As for what would stop people from leveraging everything through borrowing? THE LENDERS. What incentive do lenders have to lend? What do you care? Are you a bank? (See following)
To that guy, a n00b answer from a n00b at economics (though his post was from last year):
First of all, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Banking. There's no reason to be asking people on this site about anything relating to econmics or Islam. It's a rating site.
But here's how I interpret the Islamic view on interest using common sense.
It's a common misconception (or tactic) to assume that since Islam outlaws interest, that Islam argues that interest is not technically feasible. Wrong, interest can probably be made to work very well and in any manner of ways which could alter wealth distribution for whatever ends you want. It's just that in a free market atmosphere, it almost always winds up being how it is now.
Instead of interest, the Islamic interpretation of economics centers around profit-sharing. In a society with capitalist principles, if a person goes to the bank to get a loan for whatever venture, the bank charges interest and is guaranteed profit regardless of whether the venture results in profit or loss. The lender is guaranteed profit. Now if the venture's successful, and he makes a certain % profit, he'll pay interest on that to the bank. If he had 50% profit, lets say he winds up keeping 35% and 15% goes to the bank. Except... that profit was gained on public money. And 35% of it went into that guy's pocket, and of the 15% that went to the bank, lets say they keep 5% so only 10% goes back to the people whose money this was all done with. People might be satisfied with the 10% return on their deposits but they're not realizing how much was really made with their money. Back on the other end, the guy who kept 35% of the profit will probably add to the cost of his product to compensate for giving 15% to the bank. So that 10% return the people get doesn't count for much since the prices of everything in the economy get ratcheted up for profit. Any serious risk of loss is compensated for by insurance companies who are also using the money of their policy holders. So the lender is guaranteed profit and the business is essentially guaranteed profit. The common people have no say in this. It's not like eBay where you can choose not to give $45 for a $30 blowdryer or something, or you can choose how much over $30 you're willing to go.
Then it's spread around so that in a healthy economy, everybody is doing this to everyone else to kind of mask the trend of wealth movement. But if you want to know where all the wealth has gone, just look around (since we're in a global economy). A very tiny % of the world's population has a very large % of the world's wealth. And mostly in a certain area (where modern Western capitalism arose). And again, a person on the street in papua new guinea has no say over being involved in the economy of the united states. Not that globalization or economics itself is bad, because a lot of this are just natural laws that play out this way when manipulated at the root by a certain civilization's principles.
Islam mostly keeps the principles of capitalism, free markets and all that intact. Except it allows the Islamic government to wield greater power if necessary. The Islamic system of economics is different from a purely capitalist also in that the economy is not the #1 concern of an Islamic society. It's not even considered a primary concern. Basic human needs are.
Anyway, capitalism guided on Islamic principles would be as follows in the above scenario: The lender and the business decide to split the 50% profit equally for instance (up to the two, however they split it), so 25% goes to the business, 25% to the bank... which then gives the 25% to the public. How does the bank make profit? Through all the other fees. Who cares anyhow (since most people would argue 'OMG WHAT ABOUT TEH BANKZZ!1!!'), you're not a banker. You'd most likely either be the business or the public depositor. I know shit all about banking/economics, so I have no idea how banks make money as is so I can't really answer that, ask someone who owns a bank and they could probably come up with a few ideas. See that wiki article on Islamic banking for all else it says.
And like I said, you could even rig an interest system to follow this same path of wealth distribution, so Islam isn't saying interest is technically unfeasible or not profitable or whatever. It's just saying not to use it (because clearly it doesn't mix well with a free capitalist foundation for an economy).
In today's world, an Islamic economy would be encapsulated within the Islamic state, which would then have to interact with the rest of the world on their basis (because it would likely be inheriting tons of debt, due in no small part to interest, and consolidating all the interest-related debt of its constituents). It can then come to whatever agreement necessary to get rid of that debt eventually, and then can halt all future transactions based on interest and pursue an appropriate trade policy to reflect those principles. I don't see this as a huge deal because if this were to ever happen, if things were to ever get to the point where a government existed that could and would have to do this, it'd probably already be in the middle of World War 3.
***
In today's world, an Islamic economy would be encapsulated within the Islamic state, which would then have to interact with the rest of the world on their basis (because it would likely be inheriting tons of debt, due in no small part to interest, and consolidating all the interest-related debt of its constituents). It can then come to whatever agreement necessary to get rid of that debt eventually, and then can halt all future transactions based on interest and pursue an appropriate trade policy to reflect those principles. I don't see this as a huge deal because if this were to ever happen, if things were to ever get to the point where a government existed that could and would have to do this, it'd probably already be in the middle of World War 3.
Personally, I'm not too sure where I stand on Western-style capitalism. It will, after all, come back to bite the US in the ass. Human nature doesn't serve any one people over another based upon where they live or who they are. It could wind up being teh winnar for those tricksy Chinese for all we know. (Seriously, if a COMMUNIST country can kick ass at dealing with a capitalist world, why are people doubting an Islamic economy would have any problems following the same path? Communism DOESN'T WORK. But people can MAKE it work. Islamic economies in the past have never collapsed due to being Islamic.)
The symptoms are there... (being abandoned by its own 'monster') pointless wars and projection of power and idiotic, panicked foreign policy. They aren't directly focused on China, but they don't have to be. Existing resources and involvement in other places has grown more important necessitating all this. The country's under threat from essentially the rest of the world.
*************
^^ Re: 'coming back to bite the US in the ass': http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6960961.stm
oh snap. and that triggered the recent global economic panic.
Also, I notice in the second part of that where I quote myself, I'm kind of arguing for Chavez-style socialism.
