Musings from a seeker of knowledge…Sharing the Islamic worldview
Assalamu alaikum (peace be with you)
There’s a new YouTube channel that seems to offer well researched and pleasantly produced short videos on all topics religion. I found this recent episode so relaxing that I thought I’d quickly reblog it 🙂
Something to tickle your brain cells and taste buds the next time you enjoy your morning cup brew.
Enjoy!
Dear Readers, Assalamu alaikum, peace be with you all,
A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to convey to you that we have established a foundation dedicated to spiritual elevation for all people, sans judgement, sans expectations, open and welcome to all.
The good news I have to share today is that through generous donation and by the work of dedicated students, we have a new website! A ‘meeting place’ we hope where we can share and grow together. You will find access to livestreamed video and podcasts completely free there. Join our mailing list so we can also keep you updated with our regular and special programs that are member only – but always completely free.
And indeed we are blessed to be launching it during the sacred month of Muharram, the first of the new year of 1442. A month the prophet (peace upon him and God’s blessings) termed the ‘month of God’. A time when so many momentous events have transpired, both deaths and births. It is a powerful time.
And therefore with much happiness I invite you to visit and be with us!
And what better way to celebrate a new birth than to soothe our ears with some masterfully recited Quran! 🙂 As I have tried to do many times, here’s to highlighting the beauty and power of female Quran reciters…who only recently are making their voices available on public media (they’ve been reciting for centuries, but it has always been for select audiences)
So delighted am I to showcase a recent Youtube channel dedicated to – you guessed it! – female Quran reciters, or Qaariaath to use the Arabic.
Here is a passage from the 3rd chapter in the Quran, it talks about the birth of our lady Mary (peace upon her). The Quran gives some detail as to the birth and childhood of Mary, prior to her own motherhood as the blessed virgin mother of Jesus (peace upon him). In the Quranic narrative, Mary’s mother – from a priestly Jewish lineage – consecrates her to be born baby to the service of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. Something only a boy was allowed to do in those days. So she was surprised when she gave birth to a girl! – Mary. And God says, I know what you do not. And indeed this girl had in front of her one of the most magnificent destinies ever to be. What more need I say.
Except that Mary’s miracles were manifested from an early age – even as a child food was always found in her room. When her guardian, the prophet Zachariah (peace upon him) wondered at this, she taught him that when God decides to provision those He choses, He does so in ways we cannot fathom, cannot count…in short in miraculous ways.
Enjoy and may you be blessed. I hope to see you at Irfaa
Holding our first workshop on Saturday inshaAllah 🙂 What a long way we’ve come in a year! So much to be grateful for in these dark times. Here’s to sharing and passing it forward 🙂
Here’s the link for our newsletter with more information Final Call! Illumined Way and Qabas book launch
Dear Readers,
Assalamu alaikum (peace be with you)
Greetings and wishes for a blessed and peaceful month of fasting, reflection, giving out, sharing and growing. I know these times are difficult and what almost everyone around the world is facing is unprecedented, strange and can therefore be scary. Nevertheless, upon reflection there is an abundance of reason to be thankful, and so in this time of hardship, remembering all the trouble we have faced and come successfully through, we give thanks and take hear and increase our hope. This time is one of purification or elevation. Both good things, and we pray they are easy and blessed. God willing more on these topics later.
For my dear Muslim brothers and sisters, here are two blog posts I wrote on the topic that I hope may help.
https://www.irfaa.ca/post/ramadan-under-lockdown
I did not intend to write long, and it has been a long while since I blogged here. The long silence was in part because I have been busy setting up a non-profit foundation and also publishing by God’s grace. Introducing both here today 🙂
The foundation is called ‘Irfa’a’ ; a beautiful Quranic Arabic word that means ‘to elevate/ raise up’. The first books published, are volumes 1 to 4 of a series that takes its title from another Quranic word; ‘Qabas’; which means a lit flame/torch or firebrand. I invite you to visit our foundation’s website and please look at the books. InshaAllah (God willing), perhaps later we shall write more about them.
Irfa’a Foundation – http://www.irfaa.ca
Qabas – http://www.irfaa.ca/rasalhaq
For now, I leave you with an image of the new crescent moon of the month of Ramadan. I was blessed to witness it last night. I hope you can spot it! May peace be with you all
When beauty becomes a priority over efficiency, that is an indication of a trace of the Divine essence. Fortunate is the one whose work bears this mark.
Dear Readers,
Assalamu alaikum, peace be with you all!
May you all be and enjoying peaceful days wherever you are, and may peaceful days continue for you or reach you soon!
I began sometime ago on the beautiful art of reciting the Quran, explaining that tajweed (the science of correct pronunciation of Quran) is a exacting science and art that takes many years to master, and also that recitation of the Quran is to many Muslims a form of ‘music’ if you will. In fact, it is famously said that in Egypt – considered to be the place where Quranic recitation reached is pinnacle – large crowds will gather to sit throughout the night listening to famous master reciters intoning the Quran. Quran concerts! 🙂
Once the rules of tajweed are mastered, then great reciters are able to captivate listeners even further by using the ancient Middle Eastern musical forms to recite the Quran. These are called ‘maqamaat’ and are similar to the ‘raag’ of the South Asian classical music system to those familiar with it. I have explained a bit of this in this post. I think it is very neat that maqamaat can be employed to further beautify Quranic recitation and I think it also more neat that large crowds can sit the whole night listening to a master reciter and enjoy that experience.
Traditional Muslim societies enjoyed Islam a great deal, and there is everything good in that and nothing bad. I do not know why the old ways are dying out, nor why some Muslims object to the old ways. There is the very famous saying of the beloved messenger of God, Muhammed (peace be upon him) who said ‘God is beautiful and loves beauty’. God willing, I will post on the multitudes of beautiful art forms in the Muslim world – carpet weaving, tile making, wood work, calligraphy to name a few – all so gentle in their execution and exquisitely beautiful. My personal opinion is that only those with hearts connected to the Divine can produce such works that touch on Divine traces of beauty…always gentle, always soothing, always peaceful and breathing into the soul of the viewer/user/partaker, the fragrance of the eternal existence with the primordial source of all.
For now, I wanted to share that the first Islamic art form was the beautiful recitation of the Quran. Many of the companions of the prophet (peace be upon him) were master reciters of the Quran and indeed he himself (peace be upon him) is reported to have had a wonderfully beautiful voice and to have recited the Quran with perfection. May we be blessed to hear his recitation one day (sallalaahu alaihi wasallam = peace be upon him).
The prophet (peace be upon him) would sometimes when tired, ask some of his companions to recite Quran for him. Some authentic narrations below;
Once the Messenger of Allah said, “The person who reads the Quran in the best way in my ummah is Ubayy.” (Bukhari, “Fada’ilu’l-Qur’an”, 8).
The messenger of God, peace be upon him said to Ubayy b. Ka’b, “Allah ordered me to make you read the Quran.” Ubayy asked, “Did Allah utter my name?” The Prophet said, “Yes, He did.” (Bukhari, “Tafsir”, 98; Tirmidhi, “Manaqib”, 33)
The Prophet asked Abdullah Ibn Masud to read him the Quran. Thereupon, Ibn Mas’ud said,
“O Messenger of Allah! Shall I read the Quran to you though it was sent down to you?” The Prophet said,
“Yes, I like listening to the Quran from others.”
Ibn Mas’ud started to read. When he came to the verse, “How then if We brought from each people a witness, and We brought thee as a witness against these people?”, the Messenger of Allah said,
“That is enough for now.” At that moment, tears were coming down from his eyes. (Bukhari, Fadailu’l-Qur’ân: 32-33)
I wish I could post some videos of gatherings of listening to the Quran. I have attended far too few and generally people at these gatherings don’t seek popularity, and are very modest in their bearing. So no one really bothers to record anything, being very much in the moment and enjoying the experience all the more for it.
But it is well known among Muslims that we derive great enjoyment and peace by just listening to the recitation. So in that sense our relationship to the Quran is unlike that of other faith communities to their scripture, at least those I know of. So this is something non-Muslims often misunderstand about Muslims when we talk about listening to the Quran, or our relationship with the Quran.
It is also a wrong opinion that Muslim women reciting the Quran is not common. Indeed some of the greatest reciters of Quran were women. In fact, one of the most famous international annual Quran reciting competitions (yes we have these, they test mostly perfection of tajweed and of course how well the Quran is memorised) is named after our lady Fathima, the beloved daughter of the prophet (peace be upon him). I will share a video from this competition below, they are hard to access by English users usually.
Please go to minute 3.45 where the recitation of our dear little sister Fariha will begin. Subhahanallah, her recitation is clear and beautiful… so very gentle. For those not familiar with Quran competitions, the judging panels can be rather daunting. Of all the Islamic sciences, the science of reciting the Quran is the most strict as even the slightest mistakes are not allowed, hence the judges look especially tough, and likely are. How these work is that a judge will recite from some random verse in the Quran and the participant has to complete it and go on reciting until he/she is stopped. Thus a participants perfection in memorization and how well they have mastered tajweed is tested. The melody with which they recite is entirely up to them.
And to finish, here is one video I found of a ‘Quran concert’, where Hajara Bousaq, a famous Moroccan reciter of the Quran, a ‘qari-ah’ (= female reciter of Quran) is reciting in a mosque to a full crowd. She will repeat many verses to emphasize meanings as she goes along. I hope you enjoy. Her recitation is masterful!
May peace be with you all.
There are some experiences after which one should die because nothing more will surpass them. One such experience is the Qiyam of Laylatul Qadr at Eyup Sultan. Everyone enters the hallowed precincts of Eyup Sultan with their own individual worries and burdens and yet once you step off the ferry and cross the road to […]
via LAYLATUL QADR ON HALLOWED GROUNDS……. — Siraat-e-Mustaqeem
Assalamu alaikum, peace be with you dear readers. It has been a long time since I last blogged, and it may be some time yet before I can resume as many other things have kept me busy. However, today the 29th of Ramadan of 1440, just before this blessed months departs (we Muslims consider the month a dear guest that arrives once a year, and we try our best to host her in the most loving way while she is with us, and wait until she visits again another year… many Muslims will end the month with the heartfelt prayer, ‘O Divine, give us life to meet Ramadan again’!), I cannot but help share the post above written by someone I was honored to meet. I will not name her except to say she is a well respected specialist physician who has dedicated her life to service in many many spheres, and it seems, is now enjoying some well earned time in Turkey during Ramadan.
Laylatul Qadr means ‘layl =night, ul =of, qadr= power/Divine decree’, it is the night that comes once during Ramadan, on one of the odd nights of the last ten days – i.e., 21st, 23rd, 25th, 27th or 29th night. We do not know exactly when it is, but we watch for it and we look for its signs – a beautiful indescribable peace that settles in the heart from dusk till dawn, a stillness that covers the earth, and in the dawn a sun that rises without rays. It commemorates the night the Quran was first revealed. Many reports pour in every year about which night it may have been. This year, the night of the 27th rose high on the list of signs. 🙂
The nights of Ramadan are spent in beautiful and peaceful worship, usually we break fast in the mosque, complete the dusk prayer, then eat a meal..then rest a little until the call for the night prayer is made, which happens about an hour and half after dusk. Then we pray the night prayer and after this begins voluntary prayers that last through the rest of the night. We call these ‘taraweeh’ or ‘qiyam al layl’. They are spiritually powerful, especially in the last ten days of Ramadan…the month’s training of abstinence from food and drink I think impacts the body, which becomes more receptive to spiritual or other wordly nuances, and then the profoundly moving recitation of the Quran by master reciters adds to the ‘magic’ (if you will) of it all, where many people will feel their hearts open, their burdens fall away, their tears flow, their worries and anxieties eased as they are filled with new light and healing.
So now with the above context I hope you can enjoy the experience shared above from someone blessed to have spent laylathul qadr in a most special place, the mosque of abu Ayyub in Istanbul. For any who have been there during any time of the year, I need say no more. The feeling in the place is immense, indescribable. For those who have been in Turkey and been in any of the mosques, I hope you can imagine..but really it is so much more in abu Ayyub jaami. And for those who have not been there, I pray you get to go and regardless of what faith or creed, colour or disposition, may you be able to benefit from the gifts freely given there.
Peace be with you all, and Eid Mubarak in advance! May you have a blessed festival
The beginningless begining and the endless end,
That is Divinity.
What is before the first and after the last and all in between,
That is the Divine.
Who tastes, knows
and who does not, may only believe.
May all acknowledgers, believe,
and all believers, taste.
My Beloved, while I am busy working for You, don’t let me forget You.
Dear Readers, peace be with you,
Hope this beautiful spring day finds you well and your families in good health. It has long been on my mind to introduce you to the immense wealth of female scholarship and role models, the Islamic tradition abounds in.
The fact that many, including many Muslims themselves, are unaware of this rich heritage is a sad testament to the dearth of sound knowledge and/or access to the same, in the modern world.
In an older post, I introduce the three foundational aspects that make up the religion of Islam; Islam (practice), Iman (belief) and Ihsan (excellence/beauty). Each of these branches has its own ‘Imams’ or great leaders, so great is their contribution to each of the domains, that all Muslims recognize them and know them to be the foremost in their sphere.
For example, every Sunni Muslim knows the four Imams of fiqh (=jurisprudence, or law), which deals with the external practices, or ‘Islam’, in this way of life. They are Ibn Hanbal, Abu Hanifa, Shafi’i and Malik, (raheemahullah alaihum, God’s mercy upon them all). I will explain more about this later God willing, but in short, they each founded a ‘school of thought’ that laid principles of law that govern the practices of Islam.
What is less well known among Sunni Muslims of today is that each of the other two branches also has ‘Imams’. For Iman (or creed/theology), they are; Imam Maturidi, and Ash’ari (God’s mercy upon both). And for Ihsan, considered the pinnacle and adornment of this religion, they include Abu Talib Al Makki, Junaid of Baghdad, and Raabia of Basra, about whom this post will be.
Raabia is a great saint of Islam. Islam too recognizes saints, but they are not the same as commonly thought of when one brings to mind saints of the Christian tradition, so more about this later God willing.
Raabia, a woman, reached such an exalted state in her ‘knowing’ of God, that she became a teacher and mentor for some of those who went on to become among the foremost scholars of our tradition, especially in the domain of Ihsan. It is from their accounts that we know what we know of her. She is unique in that she left no known written works, but her ‘name’ is recognized by almost all Muslims, a testament to the impression she made. She lived ~1200 years ago.
Rabia (Allah’s mercy upon her) lived in Basra, in present day Iraq, she would have been born in the first hundred years or so after the death of the blessed beloved (peace be upon him). An account of her life is given by Farid ud-Din Attar in ‘Thadhkirat al-Awliyaa (=Memorial of the Friends of God), the author of the famous ‘Conference of the Birds’. She was a devoted worshipper and great lover of God, so much so that stories of her piety, and ascetism, have become a part of ‘common Muslim lore’.
She was a contemporary of a number of prominent scholars of Ihsan such as; Hasan Al Basri, Sufyan ibn Sa’id ath-Thawri, Shu’ba ibn al-Hajjaj to name a few. These great scholars are reported to have sought her advice on legal matters as well as on spiritual matters. Some accounts of these encounters are collected by the 11th century famous Sufi scholar ‘as-Sulami’ in his ‘Dhikr an-Niswa al-Muta’ Abbidat as Sufiyyat’ (translated recently as ‘Early Sufi Women’ by Rkia Cornell, Fons Vitae publishers), some of which I reproduce here;
“Sufyan ath-Thawri said about Rabia’, “take me to the mentor. For when I am apart from her, I can find no solace”, when he entered her abode, Sufyan raised his hand and said, “O God, grant me safety!” At this, Rabi’a wept. “What makes you weep?” he asked. “You caused me to weep,” she replied. “How?” he asked. She answered, “Have you not learned that true safety from the world is to abandon all that is in it? So how can you ask such a thing while you are still soiled with the world?”. In another account it was reported by Shayban al-Ubulli who said ‘I heard Rabi’a say: “For everything there is a fruit, and the fruit of the knowledge of God is in orienting oneself toward God at all times”. Also on his authority it is related Rabi’a said “I ask God’s forgiveness for my lack of truthfulness in saying, ‘I ask God’s forgiveness.’” In another narration, it is recorded that a scholar said in her presence “He who persists in knocking at the door will have it opened for him”. “the door is already open,” she replied. “But the question is: who wishes to enter it?””
She attained the highest state a practitioner of Islam aspires to, to become an ‘a’rif’ or ‘one who knows God’, a gnostic. Though strict with herself and a great renouncer of the world (thus embodying a basic Islamic ethos, that one is firm on oneself, but compassionate and magnanimous with others…a concept many Muslims seem to like to apply in the opposite direction these days – that is, being firm in judging others but lax with themselves!), her greatest contributions to Islam, is her teaching of the concept of ‘Divine love’.
This was a time when Muslims were overcome with extreme awe of God, it is said, to the extent, some of the early Sufis were scared to lift a finger lest God disproves, she showed that God’s love is to be sought for the sake of God himself, rather than to worship Him out of fear of punishment or desire for reward.
It is important to recount the time early in our history when men and women learned and taught one another – Hasan Al-Basri famously stated ‘I once spent a whole day and a night in Rabi’a’s company and never once did it cross my mind that she was a woman and I was a man’ – and it is related Rabi’a said – ‘once Hasan Al Basri visited me and so enraptured were we in talking about God that I forgot what I was cooking and it burned to a crisp’ – may these times come back to us.
Indeed, it is vital we reacquaint ourselves with such immense gnostics and teachers in our faith, especially those who are women, who taught us the all important practice of Ihsan, without which Islam can become an empty shell.
Giants such as Rabia’, so long left in the margin of scholarly enterprise, but so important for us to know today. And may God grant us a strong love for them so we follow in their footsteps, thus bridging our ‘islam’ and ‘iman’ to come to ‘ihsan’, and thereby taste the fullness and joy of what it means to be a Muslim.
Farid ud-Din Attar’s praise for her:
“No, she wasn’t a single woman, But a hundred men over: Robed in the quintessence of pain, From foot to face, immersed in the Truth, Effaced in the radiance of God, And liberated from all superfluous excess.”
- In the ‘Conference of the Birds’
“That noble recluse who dwelled behind the cloisters of God’s elect, a matron of sanctity beneath sincerity’s veil, on fire with love, totally consumed with yearning, arduously enraptured by God’s proximity, that apostle of Mary’s purity, acknowledged by all men was Rabia al-Adawiya, God’s mercy rest upon her.”
- In the ‘Memoirs of the Saints’
Two poems from Rabia (Allah’s mercy upon her)
In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
Speech is born out of longing,
True description from the real taste.
The one who tastes, knows;
the one who explains, lies.
How can you describe the true form of Something
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
And who lives as a sign for your journey?~~
I have two ways of loving You:
A selfish one
And another way that is worthy of You.
In my selfish love, I remember You and You alone.
In that other love, You lift the veil
And let me feast my eyes on Your Living Face.
~~
May God ennoble her face, shower His light upon her grave and grant her the highest station in paradise, and may we be blessed to drink from her light and learn from her wisdom.
She is reported to have lived her last days in Jerusalem, and while the exact site is disputed, there is some evidence she was buried on the Mount of Olives. The site is just adjacent to where the chapel of the ascension is, isn’t that a beautiful sign.
I had the great honour to visit her resting site and pay my respects. It has been in the trust of a Palestinian family for centuries, whose door one knocks on to request the key to visit the tomb. A young member of the family accompanied me and indeed what a gladness to see a modern day teenager carrying on the family duty. Captions on the photos below will explain more God willing.
Peace be with you all
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