sorry, i was out in the last days of Ramadhan and eid.

There are matters that are non-negotiable in Islam , that are the foundation of it. Now, matters in which there are flexibilities, the doors of ijtehad are wide open. Difference in opinion on the interpretation of Quranic verses and prophetic traditions are possible to some extent while differing from the prophet in matters are also possible (but in very very limited terms). Where prophet has ruled on a matter, that can not be challenged.

These are my two cents. I seek forgiveness from Allah for any mistakes I made.

1. From sheikh suyuti's explanation, it is not part of faith or religion to celebrate maulud un nabi.

2. It is hard to understand that people who were around the prophet and those who gaurded him with their lives, did not feel the need for celebrating mualudin nabi after his departure from life. But centuries later, people loved the prophet saw more than his own family and friends!

Thanks, that is good and informative. But my questions remain unanswered.

Why shd I celebrate it?
What if I don't celebrate it?
Is there reward for it?
Is it part of worship or is it a ritual?

its me, smooth daddy

mmja,
Early muslims were the most righteous in their belief and act as is evident from the tradition of the Prophet saw: "The best time is my time and next best is of the generation after me and the one after that."

The time of Khilafatur Rashidiyah falls in that category. At large, all the rulers of this time ruled with justice, and carried on the work of the prophet. Wars agains romans and persians started in the time of the prophet AS.

Era of Abu Bakr As Siddiq was marked with mutinies and apostasies. He fought against them to protect islam, while the army that prophet AS himself had formed was engaged in battles with romans and persians.

In the times of other caliphates, wars continued in persian and roman lands. At this point, I will ask you a question, do you think, any army of volunteer soldiers, ill equipped, ill trained, and much smaller in number than super powers of that time would dare to militarily challenge them?

Islam and its growing influence posed challenges to the rulers of lands outside arabia and threatened status quo. Majority of residents in areas that came under the rule of khilafa during these battles, remained non-muslim for decades, and in some cases for centuries. Only rules of governence changed and the system of euality and justice was established. In many cases, non-muslim populace of towns and cities invited Muslims to rescue them from tyranny of their own rulers.

Your assertions on the issue of karbala are far from balanced views - khilafa is not by inheritence, regardless of who the person is.

I will let you digest this for now.

everybody knows that, but what's the religious standing of it?

SRK, you are free to make your choices of what you want to celebrate. you can celebrate whatever you want. But if you tell me it is part of my religion, you will have to prove it to me with solid evidence.

shahrukh khan said:

some ppl say we shouldnt celebrate eid milad ul nabi dono ke mazay hain...

because it is not Eid. Neither prophet nor his companions during his life time or thereafter ever celebrated this ocassion as eid.

Eid is what Allah and His messenger (SAW) had established as Eid. Every other celebration can not be added in that category.

That gave me an idea... I post another topic

waz out on eid holidays

Good for you and for him

I prayed for all - Eid Mubarak to all

Ok, everbody
I will, InshaAllah, see you after Eid.
Until then, collect as much hasanat before these blessed days are over.
May Allah accept your nd my obedience and forgive us all - Ameen

Eid Mubarak

Smooth_daddy said:

~Fragi~ said:

Smooth_daddy said:

Smooth_daddy said:

This is how the list goes so far

VZ
Sall
NB
and
CF

PM929
SRK
TT
doc Sam
Babu
Fragi
Rapu
MMJA
WAFA

Keep it going.
anybody out there not wanting to be prayed for

Inshallah yeh list aur lambi hogi na

Chandni

Dolly
Balich

This is the final list

that's for every night and morning in regular days. In Ramadhan, we should not miss any prayers in the masjid.

Women can also pray in the masjid. If they did at home, it doesn't count against them. (Allah knows the best)

don't myself, what to say of others

you are on

you are in my prayers.
InshaAllah, I am making Aitekaf.
You keep praying for me too sis.

Ok, is that it?
Tomorrow will be the last day before I am gone until after Eid. I intend to focus on dua and zikr in the remaining nights of Ramadhan. I'll take this list with me and pray for all those who asked. Don't worry, I'll pray for everyone regardless of them signing up for it. I hope you'll pray for me too.

I ask all of you to forgive me for I may have hurt some one's feelings or wronged someone. I forgave everyone who may have done any wrong to me.

~Fragi~ said:

Smooth_daddy said:

Smooth_daddy said:

This is how the list goes so far

VZ
Sall
NB
and
CF

PM929
SRK
TT
doc Sam
Babu
Fragi
Rapu
MMJA
WAFA

Keep it going.
anybody out there not wanting to be prayed for

Inshallah yeh list aur lambi hogi na

Chandni

yeap

got another job already!

conrats and am sure ya'll do fine with a +ve attitude.

remarkable essay
good research SRK

Blame it on the veil?



By Madeline Bunting

It’s been quite extraordinary: one man’s emotional response to the niqab — the Muslim veil that covers all but the eyes — has snowballed into a perceived titanic clash of cultures in which commentators pompously pronounce on how Muslims are “rejecting the values of liberal democracy”.

Jack Straw feels uncomfortable and within a matter of hours, his discomfort is calibrated on news bulletins and websites in terms of an inquisitorial demand: do Muslims in this country want to integrate? How does Straw’s “I feel ...” spin so rapidly into such grandstanding?

The confusions and sleights of hand are legion, and it’s hard to know where to start to unpick this holy mess. Let’s begin with its holiness, because this is an element which has been absent from the furore. There are two distinct patterns of niqab-wearing in this country. One group wears the niqab by cultural tradition. Often they are relatively recent migrants, from Somalia or Yemen for example, and for the record it is not a “symbol of oppression” but a symbol of status.

The second group comprises the small but slightly increasing number of younger women who wear it as a sign of their intense piety. This latter prompted the memory of being taken as a child by my mother to visit the Poor Clares’ convent in York. We gave alms to these impoverished women who had chosen complete segregation from the world as part of their strict spiritual discipline; we talked to the gentle, warm mother superior through the bars of a grille that symbolised their retreat from the world. No one accused these nuns of “rejecting the values of liberal democracy” — yet they were co-religionists of the IRA terrorists of their time.

The point is that within all religious traditions there are trends emphasising the corrupting influences of the world and how one must keep them at a distance. Catholicism and the celibate monastic tradition of Buddhism interpret this in one way. Salafi Islam interprets it in modes of dress and behaviour in public places. Since when has secular Britain become so intolerant that it can’t accommodate (no one is asking them to like) these small minorities of puritanical piety?

But the bigger part of the muddle is why Straw felt entitled to privilege his emotional response without questioning it more deeply. Does it not occur to men opining on their sense of “rejection” at the niqab that it could be equally prompted by separatist lesbians? Or on another even more obvious tack: how comfortable does the woman wearing the niqab feel coming to visit her MP ensconced in his cultural context, at ease with enormous power and authority?

Comfort is a disastrous new measure for interactions in a diverse society. I’ve got a long list of discomforts. Does that licence me to make demands of others? I find talking to blind people difficult because I rely on eye contact. Similarly, dark glasses are problematic. And, to my shame, I often give up on conversations with people hard of hearing because I over-rely on chat to kindle warmth.

So forget comfort and accept the starting point for any kind of tolerance: that it’s not easy, that it requires imagination, that it makes demands of us. Learn new forms of communication and your world expands.

This debate about the niqab is the flipside of another, parallel debate (led by women) about the over-sexualisation of another subset of women who dress very provocatively (no men complaining here). One of the impulses for women who choose to take the niqab is how highly sexualised public space in this country has become. How do you signal your rejection — even repulsion — at what you regard as near-P**Nography blazoned over billboards?

A point worth pondering is that a minority of young women are so repulsed by the offer of femininity in Britain — rapidly rising alcohol abuse, soaring sexually transmitted diseases — that they have sought such a drastic option as the niqab.

And here’s the most damaging aspect of Straw’s self-indulgent intervention: the niqab is a drastic option and one that many Muslim women reject. It is the response of a minority who feel that they are living in a hostile climate.

Straw’s comments have unleashed a storm of prejudice that only exacerbates the very tendencies which prompt some Muslims to retreat. They undermine efforts within the Muslim community to build more self-confidence, to encourage tightly knit communities to reach out. They have elevated the situation of a tiny minority of women who are often the most fearful anyway into a national problem — even that they form a barrier to successful integration.

This is dangerous and absurd. There are many far more important barriers to successful integration. Two-thirds of children from families of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin are growing up in poverty.

More than 20 per cent of all Muslim youths between 16 and 24 are unemployed. In many areas, the desire of second generation Muslims to integrate is being stymied by “white flight” from residential areas and white families using parental choice in education to avoid schools with large numbers of Asian pupils.

Outgoing, confident ethnic communities are built where they find understanding, opportunity and engagement. We need to ask ourselves whether that is what we have provided.

Straw’s comments on the niqab escalated into an utterly false implication that Muslims don’t really want to integrate. Television reports ran over pictures of monocultural playgrounds. Ted Cantle’s identification of “parallel lives” in his report on the Bradford riots of 2001 has morphed into a problem that is being laid entirely at the door of a small minority that is impoverished and marginalised. This is ugly.

And there is another, equally ugly, agenda here. Many Muslims were surprised at Straw’s comments — including close political Muslim allies — given his long relationship with the community in his constituency. There has been speculation on his political ambitions. But the point that intrigues me is how Straw is elevating this question as one of primary national concern. In an article on Tony Crosland in the New Statesman last month, Straw cited the Labour thinker’s belief that class was the great divide in society, and added that, now, “religion” was the great divide.

Obviously, Straw meant Islam. No one is too worried about a shrinking number of Anglicans or Catholics. It’s a magnificent convenience for New Labour to let the divides of class slip from view as they prove intractable and social mobility grinds to a halt. In its place, a divide is drawn between a Muslim minority and the vast majority of non-Muslims. It resonates — as the public response to Straw testifies — but it is profoundly mistaken.

The job of a political leader at this historical juncture is to prod our complacencies and prejudices, to open our eyes to recognising how much we have in common; how much of Islam we non-Muslims can appreciate and admire. How much Islam can contribute to the far greater problems we all face? We shouldn’t be hounding those nervous or pious women in their niqabs. Their choice of clothing is as irrelevant as that of Goths. Beware, said Freud wisely, of the narcissism of small differences.

you bet, its scary.
once you make your move, its never the same again and you can't hit the back button either.

Having or not having kids could be helpful but there is no one answer to this situation. There are no quick fixes or drive thru solutions to household problems. I can tell you this much my lil sis and save this if you think it has some value:

Buthchers use cleaver to cut but his cut is forever and the damage is permanent, its benefit is for limited consumation. A surgeon cuts too with even a sharper knife. But this cuts smaller incisions for precision work and to save life. The point here is, never use a cleaver when you can correct a problem with a scalpel; don't do surgery when medicine alone can cure the ill.

I'm wid ya, waiting on

shahrukh khan said:

someone is pretty when his heart is pretty

but she's talking about "her". let's rephrase it, "someone is pretty when she is pretty inside and out"

kiddin, its the heart, if its clean and beautiful, it compensates for all other short comings.

LiL_DollY said:

Smooth_daddy said:

LiL_DollY said:

crying!

I dont know what to do???

If I wanna leave him

or be with him

for the rest of my life

(I feel like I dont love him).

IM scared!

I don't know why I had the feeling

Did you base your first decision on feelings too

If you did, then don't repeat that mistake.

Its far more complex than most people can imagine. Let me know if I can
help.

When I made my desicion to be with him
it was mroe like blackmail
lolz...
fmaily talked me into it.

I had no other choice...
they took my whole life away from me.

I wanted to go to college...
so I played along...

and this is where i am now

a dead end!

sorry to know that dolly   

You made one wrong decision, alright! but don't make another wrong decision. Staying in the situation or getting out of it could be a wrong decision. Balance the harms and benefits of both. None of these options come with all good.

Thanks sunshine for your support

danie said:

Aur mein Indian hoon. 5 saal Dubai mei raha hoon. 6 mahine se China mein hoon lekin maine koi aisa aadmi nahin dekha jo kisi ko fakat is liye ghoor raha ho ki us ne muh nahi dak rakha ho.

It may be true. Let me relate to you a story from last week that was narrated on the National Public Radio (NPR - most widely heard news radio in US). It reported increasing "street sexual harassment" against women in New York. Several women narrated their stories about how they were approached and were harassed. Most commonly, it was their clothing that drew such attention. One lady went about saying that after she realized that she was being looked upon in an undignified way, she immediately went to a nearby store, bought a sweatshirt and put it on to protect herself.

danie said:

S-S thanx for joining. Mein aapki baat se sahmat hoon ki pahle taqleef hogi phir baad mein aadat parr jaegi. Aadat to har baat ki parr sakti hei. Agar aap aaj se langrri taang chalna shuru kar do to shuru mein taqlee3f hogi par baad mein aadat parr jaegi. Agar aap aaj se din mein sirf ek baar khao to shuru mein to taqleef hogi par baad mein aadat ho jaegi. So it is not the matter.
Aur mein Indian hoon. 5 saal Dubai mei raha hoon. 6 mahine se China mein hoon lekin maine koi aisa aadmi nahin dekha jo kisi ko fakat is liye ghoor raha ho ki us ne muh nahi dak rakha ho.

Well, you get used to drugs also. they don't effect as much once your body gets used to it.

Danie, you don't understand! hijab is an issue of faith and if it poses some physical difficulty, believers value their faith over their bodily comforts.

There are many women I know who have been posed with the same question, "Boy! it must be very hot in those clothes, especially in this heat?" I was impressed with their response, "yeah it gets little warm, but hell fire is worse, I'd rather be little hot here than being in a pit of fire." Its not only women of asian or middle east origin are committed to covering them selves, its the local reverts who say and act like that.

danie said:

Smooth_daddy said:

danie said:

Why the ladies are bound to show hayaa in this way? Why not men also are suggested to wear burka?

First of all plz don't think that u r a saint and others
are bloody sadist. I also never like to see a girl in revealing cloths but it doesn't mean u force her to cover herself from top to bottom. It is very easy to give lecture on hijab but u think how will u feel if u are forced to cover urself comletely from top to bottom and go to market.
I think it will be very difficult to even breath. I think girls can tell us better how they feel in burqa. Completely covered from nails to hair(on head). I don't think there is any wrong if they are allowed to keep their face and fingers uncovered.

Hey danie, i am telling you this again, women of faith implement the command from Quran without anyone forcing them to that, at least in where I live or have lived - pakistan or US. If they don't have a problem, why do you get so emotional about it?

I am well aware of indians being critical of burqas and hijabs. they have mentioned it to me on different ocassions - i tell 'em and I'll tell you, respect their choice just as you would respect the choice of those who do not cover themselves. and if you want to know how they feel in a garment fully covering them, ask 'em without offending the very idea of it.