From Salah to Selfies: The Blog Year in Review

Revisit the most popular posts from the Al-Madina Blog in 2014.

The Problem With the Prophet’s Birthday
By Mohamed Ghilan

Every year Muslims need to go through the usual battle in the Bidah octagon. The Mawlid. Two sides that claim love of the Prophet dedicating their time and energy explaining why the other group is wrong.

Salat: The Highest Form of Yoga?
By Hasan Awan

"Prayer is the spiritual ascension of the believer", and understanding this allows us to further appreciate how salat is a form of "yoga" in the most profound and highest sense of the term.

Can We Overpraise the Prophet?
By Mokhtar Maghraoui

Can the Prophet be overpraised? Is commemorating his birth appropriate or not? Shaykh Mokhtar Maghraoui answers these questions.

Modesty and Parenting in the Age of the “Selfie”
By Hala Amer

I have three young boys whom I love dearly —all loud, all convinced they are the center of the universe, and all wanting to run around naked if I let them. I never really thought much about modesty as it related to raising children until I had them.

Hijab: A Male Perspective
By Amjad Tarsin

Through reviving Prophetic chivalry and masculine modesty within themselves, Muslim men can more effectively contribute to sustaining modesty within the Muslim community.

Love, Inshallah Or Lust, Astaghfirullah?
By Muhammad Noor

The conversations stirred by recent literature, like Salaam, Love, only mimic what has been whispered in our homes and houses of worship for decades: Muslim American culture is shifting.

The Pre-Ramadan Checklist: Health, Wealth & Stealth
By Khalil Abdur-Rashid

Part of the good manners towards the month of Ramadan is to prepare for it in earnest, and as this blessed month approaches, here are three points we should focus on in our preparation: health, wealth & stealth.

Allowing Our Community to Breathe: Race & Taqwa
By Shadee El-Masry

The killers of Michael Brown and Eric Garner are not even getting indicted. Progress? Whenever Islam spread it was because their community offered a solution to the land's problems.

Serial and the American Muslim: A Perspective
By Anonymous

The podcast Serial has riveted millions of listeners throughout the world. As it now comes to an end, here are some of the broader lessons we can reflect upon as a Muslim community.

Knowledge in Bondage: Slavery & The Value of Texts ​
By Muhammad Noor

All over the Americas, Muslim Africans wrote the Qur'an and other sacred texts from memory, distributed selections to the faithful, converted others, and established networks. What will remain of our contributions?

Salawat: The Means of Spiritual Ascent
By Abdul Aziz Suraqah

Prayer upon the Prophet ﷺ is a ladder and means of [spiritual] ascent to arrive unto Allah. That is because sending prayers upon him ﷺ frequently engenders the Prophet’s love, and the Prophet’s love engenders Allah’s love.

United in Prayer, Divided in Du’a: Nigeria, Race & Our Selective Neglect
By Zainab Kabba

The media reports and Muslim response to the kidnapping crisis in Nigeria shed light on our myopic world-view and neglect of sectors of the ummah, and how it permeates even our supplications.

The Apathy of a Religious Generation?
By Marc Manley

Our frustration with the apathy of our community on issues like Ferguson cannot be chocked up to leadership alone. The rank and file Muslim also shares a healthy dollop of blame.

How Many Condemnations Of ISIS Would You Like?
By Moutasem Atiya

I was scratching my head yesterday regarding the number of phone calls I received asking if our Muslim leaders are vocally condemning the lunatics calling themselves ISIS.

In an Islamic State of Mind: Fantasy & the Ideal Polity
By Muhammad Noor

The Muslim psyche has been obsessed with a placebo of both false premise and hope: the Islamic State. Before our collective ethics were martyred in its cause, this “state” was a figment of imagination born out of desperation.

Ziyara & The Crisis of Individuality: Visiting Others To Reconnect With God
By Muhammad Abdul Latif Finch

Visiting one another is at the heart of the solution to the crisis of selfishness in the world today, and it ultimately restores our connection with the Divine.

Only Human: Can We Follow a Fatwa From the Heart?
By Abdullah bin Hamid Ali

Many times a person neglecting an essential Islamic practice or justifying a sin will say, “Allah knows my heart", or"He knows my intention.” But what does it mean to follow one’s conscience or take a fatwa from one’s heart?

Understand the Plan: A Commentary from the Hikam of Ibn Ata’illah
By Tarek Elgawhary

To desire "better” than what one has is to miss the point entirely that what we are required to do is to be firm and excel in that which God has given us.