Softest of Tongues

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WE’re working on putting all of our MSA stuff on YouTube: this weekend, alhamdullilah, we finally uploaded last year’s (yes, i know…) IAW entertainment night w/ Amir Sulaiman -

check it out:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Backstage Interview  

Soon to come (iA):

- Preacher Moss, fr. the same event

- Shabir Ally’s recent da’wah workshop

- Broad Daylight Tour ft. Amir Sulaiman

“Do you really believe that God expects you to show Him your respect by
repeated bowing and kneeling and prostration?” Might it not be better
only to look into oneself and to pray to Him in the stillness of the
heart? Why all these movements of your body?”

As soon as I had
uttered these words I felt remorse, for I had not intended to injure
the old man’s religious feelings. But the hajji did not appear in the
least offended. He smiled with his toothless mouth and replied:

“How
else then should we worship God? Did He not create both, soul and body,
together? And this being so, should man not pray with his body as well
as with his soul? Listen, I will tell you why we Muslims pray as we
pray. We turn toward the Kaaba, God’s holy temple in Mecca, knowing
that the faces of all Muslims, wherever they may be, are turned to it
in prayer, and that we are like one body, with Him as the centre of our
thoughts. First we stand upright and recite from the Holy Koran,
remembering that it is His Word, given to man that he may be upright
and steadfast in life. Then we say, “God is the Greatest,” reminding
ourselves that no one deserves to be worshipped but Him; and bow down
deep because we honour Him above all, and praise His power and glory.
Thereafter we prostrate ourselves on our foreheads because we feel that
we are but dust and nothingness before Him, and that He is our Creator
and Sustainer on high. Then we lift our faces from the ground and
remain sitting, praying that He forgive us our sins and bestow His
grace upon us, and guide us aright, and give us health and sustenance.
Then we again prostrate ourselves and touch the dust with our foreheads
before the might and the glory of the One. After that, we remain
sitting and pray that He bless the Prophet Muhammad who brought His
message to us just as He blessed the earlier Prophets; and that He
bless us as well, and all those who follow the right guidance; and we
ask Him to give good of this world and of the good of the world to
come. In the end we turn our head to the right and to the left, saying,
“Peace and the grace of God be upon you” – and thus greet all who are
righteous, wherever they may be.
“It was thus that our Prophet used to pray and taught his followers to pray for all times, so that they might willingly surrender themselves to God – which is what Islam means – and so be at peace with Him and with their own destiny.”
The old man did not, of course, use exactly these words, but this was their meaning, and \nthis is how I remember them. Years later I realized that with his simple explanation the hajji had opened to me the first door to Islam but even then, long before my thought that Islam might become my own faith entered my mind, I began to feel an unwonted humility whenever I saw, as I often did, a man standing barefoot on his prayer rug, or on a straw mat, or on the bare earth, with his arms folded over his chest and his head lowered, entirely submerged within himself, oblivious of what was going on around him, whether it was in a mosque or on the sidewalk of a busy street: a man at peace with himself.

http://www.littlemosque.ca/

Check it out check it out.

They said, happiness is in being quiet,
Lazy and not moving;
To live among your family, not as an immigrant, or in exile;
To get your food, without much effort;
To walk behind the caravan, slowly and humbly;
To say as they wish, without opposition or responses;
To walk with the herd, and to be led;
Not to lead;
To say, and shout to every ruler
“Long live your dynasty!”;
To live as they wish, not to live as you wish.

I said, life is movement, not stability or calm;
Life is interaction and development, it is not being rigid or static;
Life is a personal battle;
That only the materialistic do not fight;
It is a feeling of victory,
But you cannot be victorious without effort;
It is the enjoyment of difficulties,
Not the enjoyment of sleep,
It is to protect your honor: have you seen a dignified person who does not protect his honor?
It is to feel that the taste of humility is rotten;
It is to live on this earth as a representative of Allah and to rule.
And to be able to say, “No!” loudly,
With full voice, to every dictator,
This is the real life, since the time of Adam and his ancestors –

And if you continue to be still after all of this, then please, join the dead.

- by a teacher of Sh. Tariq Suwaidan

There is a hadith I would very much like to embody:

Ibn Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, narrated that the Prophet, peace be upon him, said to him: “Be in this world like a stranger, or a traveller.”

Please visit this site: it is amazing.

http://aliveinbaghdad.org/

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6591623&ft=1&f=1016

http://www.hahmed.com/blog/2006/12/07/dawud-wharnsby-ali-midnight-music-video/#comments

Read the discussion: it’s very interesting. I’ve noticed this trend that “muslim” speaks of… hm. I recall my own musical inclinations, and thinking about what turned me off, it wasn’t this fatwa or that, but rather this intuition: I found that it was impossible to keep the Quran in my heart  if I listened to music. Try it, and you’ll know what I mean. Listen to some beautiful recitation of the Quran, and then go and listen to music. I actually feel very strongly that music is a form of covering one’s feelings or issues by subverting them through external means… similar to when people consume alcohol to forget their problems.

In the Quran, you find that hearing is always mentioned before sight. The reason is that sight is linear: one can only see in front of them, and if light approaches their eyes and enters in a certain manner. Hearing, on the other hand, is encompassing: one hears everything around them. Thus, it’s easy to turn away and not look at something that bothers you, but with hearing it’s altogether different.

A prominent theory in modern physics, as well, is String Theory: that all matter is composed of tiny oscillating strings, as those of a cello vibrating at different frequencies. The different oscillations of the sub-atomic strings produce different forms of matter in the same way that different frequencies produce different sounds. So it’s interesting that we recite the Quran aloud: literally the oscillations cause every part of our physical (and hopefully spiritual) being to quiver, and perhaps change our very composition. So it goes with music. So in listening to something, one is actually choosing who they become in a physical and figurative sense.

And to finish, a story that I like:

After the death of the Prophet, peace be upon him, Abdullah ibn Mas’ud lived in Baghdad, where he taught the people about the deen. One of his most famous students, on his way to lessons every day, would pass by a prominent singer and player of the ‘ud, a very melodious arabic guitar. Each day, this student would fight with the songwriter, cursing him, telling him that what he was doing was haram, as well as breaking his ‘ud. Each day the man would make a new ‘ud, and return to his spot. The student became frustrated and began taking a new route to lessons.

Then, one day, ibn Mas’ud himself passed by the road on which this singer performed. When passing by, he simply turned and looked sadly at the man, and then said “la hawla wa la quwatta illa billah…”, and continued on. The singer was curious, and asked his companions who the man was. Upon being told, he exclaimed “What’s going on! His student smashes my ‘ud, but he just walks on?!” and so he got up and ran after him.

“Wait!” said the singer, “do you know who I am?”
“Yes, I know very well that you are so and so, the singer.” said ibn Mas’ud.
“You know me, and yet you walk on by? Who are you?”
“I am Abdullah ibn Masud, the Companion of your Prophet, peace be upon him – do you know who your Prophet is?”

and so the singer felt ashamed. Trying to divert the subject, and find out why ibn Mas’ud had walked past, he said

“Didn’t you think my voice was beautiful?”
“It is – but it would be more beautiful were it pronouncing verses from the Quran.”

“Will you teach me to sing the Quran?” asked the singer
“I will” said ibn Masud, “Come to me tomorrow.”

And so the singer became a student of ibn Mas’ud. Upon learning to recite the Quran properly, he never did sing it, nor anything else. Asked why, he replied

“Songs and the Quran can never come together in the same heart.”

***

I thought it a nice story not just for the musical dars, but also because of the way in which ibn Mas’ud influenced the man – it shows that each heart is as a lock, with a certain type of key. Use the wrong key, and the lock won’t open. If you try to force the key, as the first student had done, it may break off in the lock, sealing it forever.