The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 43,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 16 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Dubai : A prominent Indian social activist in Saudi Arabia has launched a matrimonial website to help South Asian expatriates, who are against the dowry system, find suitable matches.
Aleem Khan Falki, the founder of the Jeddah-based Socio Reforms Society and who has been actively campaigning against the dowry system for a long time, has launched the unique matrimonial service website, simplenikah.com, for dowry-free marriage seekers, the Arab News reported Monday.
Falki said the main intention behind establishing the website was to provide non-commercial, economical service with the ultimate purpose of eradicating the dowry system.
“This form of blackmail has increased so much that it has taken the shape of a social blackmail,” Falki said.
“Asian fathers looking to marry off their daughters are obliged to pay their dowries, since customs in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh dictate that dowries in the form of money and property be taken from the bride,” Falki added.
He said there were many cases of grooms not wanting any dowry but the bride’s parents forcing them to accept it for fear of being chastised later by the groom’s family.
Falki said, in addition, the bride’s father is being required to host the wedding dinner party. It has become compulsory, he added.
“The groom does throw the ‘walima’ (the marriage banquet, which is the second of the two traditional parts of an Islamic wedding), but the bride’s side has to first host hundreds of guests from the groom’s side by serving a number of dishes at a full-fledged marriage hall.”
He said, because of such traditions, the bride’s parents’ lifelong savings get exhausted.
Falki emphsised that the Socio Reforms Society would bring together suitable matches through the website to help people who want to marry purely according to the prophetic tradition.
Falki said both sides would pledge to refrain from any extravagance and paying dowry that are not required in Islam.
“This will help many widows, divorcees and poverty-stricken girls who are helpless due to lack of sources to get married,” he said.
The Messenger of Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “Earning an honest living is a duty next to the principal duties of Eeman.” [Bayhaqi]
One day a woman came to Imam Abu Hanifah with a length of silk which she wanted him to sell for her and quoted a hundred dirhams for it. On the Imam expressing surprise at that figure, she raised it to two hundred. But the Imam told her that it was worth not less than five hundred. “Are you making fun of me?” said the woman. The Imam took out five hundred, gave them to her and kept the cloth. This kind of scrupulous honesty, far from harming his business, made it flourish. [Sirat-i-Numan]
Not only has Allah (subhana wa ta’ala) required Muslim men to work to support themselves and their dependents but it must be through honest means only. Working is a religious obligation and the person will be rewarded by Allah (subhana wa ta’ala) for bowing down to His commands. As for his income, a person will only make what has already been destined for him, so all the more reason to stick to honesty.
This hadith has been sent to me by dailyhadith.adaptivesolutionsinc.com
The Messenger of Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “Verily, a man teaching his child manners is better than giving one bushel of grain in alms.” [Muslim]
The boys voted to have Hasan al-Banna lead the Reform Organization at their middle school. Hasan suggested that all the coordinators of this organization offer their Zuhr prayer in the nearby Masjid in congregation. Everyone liked the idea. So in break, they would all go to the Masjid, eat their lunch together in the shade of the trees, then pray together in the Masjid having to return to school before the regular time of the Jamaat.
The Imam’s students would fill the water tank of the Masjid every morning, but every day at noon they would discover that it was empty. The Imam was curious to find out who was behind this. So, today when he heard the Adhan being called before its usual time he hurried to Masjid. When he reached there he saw children performing Wudu and some standing in rows. As soon as they had finished their prayer he grabbed them by their arms and sent them out of the masjid.
“So you’ve come to pray!” he yelled at them, “You’ve wasted all the water in the tank. Forget about how you’ve ruined the mats! Don’t you dare come here again! I was wondering who would empty this tank which is filled with such hard work every day. Now I know who’s doing it!”
One day when the Imam was leaving the Masjid after the Zuhr prayer the postman brought him a letter. The Imam opened it to find that the sender hadn’t written his name or address; only Ayat 56 of Surah An’aam of the Qur’an. He immediately figured out what it was indicating and how cunningly he had been confronted. He went straight to Hasan al-Banna’s father and complained.
After hearing the whole story Hasan’s father said to him: “Respected Shaikh, are the mats and water more valuable than the children’s prayer? Such a wise and religious person like you should encourage them. The children deserve your encouragement, not your scolding. As for the water and mats, there’s a simple solution for that,” saying that he told his younger son Abdur Rahman to call Hasan.
“Look son, if you want to pray in the small Masjid then it is your responsibility to refill the tanks after prayer, and if the Masjid needs mats then you should collect money to buy them.”
“Alright father,” said Hasan al-Banna accepting his father’s conditions, “We’ll do so.” [The Traveler of the Nile by Akhtar Husain Azmi]
And all parties were lovingly instructed in manners.
This hadith has been sent to me by dailyhadith.adaptivesolutionsinc.com
Bangalore: At the end of the screening of ‘Yaadhum’ at Chennai’s Roja Muthiah Research Library last month, Mina Swaminathan, a pioneer educationist walked up to Kombai S. Anwar and said that she wanted to apologize to him. Anwar, who was feeling ecstatic that his labour of love, was released after four years of painstaking research and struggle says, he was “taken aback” that such a distinguished and elderly person, wanted to apologize to him.
When he asked, somewhat embarrassingly the reason for her feeling vindicated, Swaminathan replied that she always spoke to him in Urdu, whenever she met him, despite him telling her that, he did not speak the language and today after watching the film, she had realized that not every Muslim spoke Urdu and that there is something called the Tamil Muslim, who shares the same history and language as she does. Swaminathan, who has witnessed the unfolding of terrible tragedies during the partition, said that she now felt “contended.”
Kombai S. Anwar
“We need to break this stereotyping of Muslim image among people, I want to tell that ours is a highly decentralized, diversified community, with different history and culture,” says Anwar, whose documentary Yaadhum, which means “all” or “everything,” in Tamil, traces the history and cultural identity of Tamil speaking Muslims in the state and beyond.
He says Islam came to South India, way before it made its presence in the North; Anwar points to the fledgling spice trade that existed between the Arabs and the Indians in the south and asserts that Islam in south is as contemporary as Arabia. He quotes Prof. PJ Cherian from his film, and says that trade not only brings goods, but also brings in different ideas, technology and new thinking. He says that contrary to popular belief that the natives were forcefully converted to Islam, the evolution of the community was gradual and has a completely different facet to it and it is these phases and appearances that Yaadhum brings to light.
In the film, Prof M.G.S. Narayanan, Director General, Centre for Heritage Studies, Govt. of Kerala, for example cites one very interesting historical fact, where the Mapilla Muslims, under the leadership of Kunjali Marakkar, who were the Muslim naval chiefs of the Zamorin king of Kerala, were able to successfully stall the invasion of Malabar by the Portuguese for over a century. He says that there was a law which was passed by the Zamorin that at-least one member of the fisherman families in Calicut must get converted to Islam, because the Hindus were reluctant to go to the sea, and the Portuguese were the naval superpower of the time.
Of the many little known and unknown facts, the most striking and revealing one the documentary covers is the fine Dravidian style architecture of mosques found in parts of Tamil Nadu, which Anwar says are in thousands. Dr. Raja Mohamad, Asst. Director of Museums (Retired), Govt. Museum, Chennai, says that there are no regulations with respect to Islamic architecture; “the mosque is a quiet place for prayer.” Hence, he continues, “wherever Islam spread it adapted the local architectural style.” Anwar says that one can see the Dravidian influence in the houses of Tamil Muslims too. He asserts this only proves, how integrated Islam was, in the predominantly Hindu environment.
Kilakarai Jumma Mosque: Kilakkarai jumma palli is one of the finest Dravidian mosques built by Seethakathi Maraikayar at Kilakarai in the late 17th Century.
Yaadhum, which is Anwar’s journey in search of his Tamil Muslim roots and identity takes him and in turn us, from the Vaishnavite pilgrimage town of Alwartirunagari to Kayalpattinam to Pulicat and many other historical places, bringing in great stories and pieces of history of Muslim relations and their progression through the ages.
A former freelance journalist and photographer, S. Anwar found his true calling in documenting history and film making and has in the past made short films on the Big Temple at Thanjavur, commissioned by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). In the film, Anwar as a voiceover narrator says that, “While ‘who am I’ is never a question that bothered me during my growing-up years, it became quite important to me and to countless other Muslims, especially in these increasingly troubled times.”
For Anwar those troubled times, came in the form of the 1998 Coimbatore bombings and the communal riots that followed it. Though the event shook him mentally, but it was reading Tariq Ali’s ‘Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree’ that made him ponder over the “Islam and Muslims that he saw around him, and the Islamic society that the book talks about, which is that of tolerance and openness”. A series of seminars and writings on the local history followed, until he later realized that, there is a tremendous amount of distortion of Muslim history and that a film, if not completely erase it, but at least could abate the misconceptions surrounding the community and its history.
Film trailer:
The documentary is the first of the three part series that he has planned, the next two parts will among others, and focus on the Tamil Muslim diaspora, which he says is in great number. Having received great appreciation and recognition for the work in Tamil Nadu, he now plans to screen the documentary in cities and towns across the country and abroad, and is currently in talks with few universities.
Anwar says that Yaadhum has made him reflect, that, like the Muslims of the past, who lived assuming multiple identities, without those identities coming in to conflict, with either their religious believes or their inhabited milieu, he too, has multiple identities. He says his identity is not only that of a Muslim, but also that of a Tamil and many others, and like the old Tamil adage goes, ‘Yaadhum Oore Yaavarum Kelir’ – The world is mine, all are my kinsmen.
Hadith
The Messenger of God (Sallallaahu `alayhi wa sallam) said:
“To acquire some useful knowledge is of greater merit than to perform a hundred devotional prayers voluntarily.
