Articles

Zaynab the daughter of Fatiimah, shines out as a paragon of speaking truth to power in the aftermath of the tragic events of Karbala. Our Prophet and her grandfather advised us that the best form of struggle was "a word of truth in front of a tyrannical ruler".

Even though the Qur’an itself honors them, in an age of sectarianism, Muslims who seek to mention the Prophetic Household are accused of either deviancy or discord.

Sayyidah Fatimah indeed is the most virtuous woman of the Ummah, it behooves Muslims to learn her characteristics and biography and to venerate her. Her illuminated personality should be loved as a sign of loving the one who loved her the most, the Prophet ﷺ.

The first ten days of Muharram should be used to draw closer to what is pleasing to Allah, renew our consciousness towards obeying Him and to avoid being agents of oppression.

Imam Ali said, “Study the Qur’an for it is the best of speech. Teach it to others for it is like the springtime of hearts.” We are in need of a return to a simpler way of approaching the Qur’an: by actually reading it.

A new Hijrah year is a new beginning, a time to start fresh. Our predecessors, in choosing it as the beginning of the Islamic calendar, recognized it not only marked a new civilization, but a new realm of human possibility, where the soul is liberated, and society is freed from injustice and corruption. That can only begin until we accept that who we are now is not the way we want to be. Though that sounds simple, the reality is that while we might wish to be a better person, we still remain fundamentally satisfied with our flaws because it’s comfortable. We complain about the status quo, but we are scared to go through the difficult process of changing it. So we tolerate our condition, and blame our spiritual inertia on busy schedules, social pressures and our own fear.

For every pilgrim, going to Hajj and making visitation to al-Madinah al-Munawwarah are both communal experiences as well as deeply personal. Though this year was not my first pilgrimage, it contained a set of different experiences and lessons for myself yet had the familiar. I’d like to share a few aspects of my journey with you with the hope that these can bring some benefit beyond my personal self.

I’ll be honest: being happily married in this day and age comes with difficult hurdles and challenges for everyone, but being married to a shaikh or daee often compounds them.

Unprecedented for the time and place, the Prophet ﷺ dismantled caste systems and divisions of ethnic and class superiority, going beyond simple toleration. He ﷺ brought together communities of every background.

Being without a smartphone was about so much more than detaching from the nafsee-self — it was a call for reattaching to the heart.

There is a saying in post-modern America that “chivalry isn’t dead” which is an acknowledgment that though there is an understanding that traditional moral codes and rites of passage have waned, they are not yet extinct. With that said, Islamic civilization has always held chivalry to be praiseworthy going back to the Pious Predecessors until today.

At the level of society overall, Calling-Out has proven extremely valuable, but there is an epiphenomenon of Call-Out Culture which is the problem of accurately verifying what is being called-out. The rigorous verification of claims made or information passed along has always been a hallmark of the Islamic tradition.