Monthly Archives: July 2020

Khutbatu l-Wada’}{ 9 Dhul Hijjah 10 AH at Mount Arafat }

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Bismillah Walhamdulillah Was Salaatu Was Salaam ‘ala Rasulillah.*********************************************************** ‘As-Salaam Alaikum Wa-Rahmatullahi Wa-Barakatuhu’.*PROPHET* (ﷺ)  FAREWELL  ‘KHUTBAH’. { خطبة الوداع, Khutbatu l-Wada’}{ 9 Dhul Hijjah 10 AH  at Mount Arafat }

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 Prophet(ﷺ) undertook his Farewell Pilgrimage in the year 10 A.H. The farewell pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the most significant historical events in the minds of Muslims, for it was the first and last pilgrimage performed by  Prophet(ﷺ) as well as being the model for performing the fifth pillar of Islam, ‘Hajj’. Prophet(ﷺ)  final sermon was delivered during the Hajj of the year 632 C.E., the ninth day of Dhul Hijjah, the 12th month of the lunar year, at ‘Arafat’, the most blessed day of the year. There were numerous Muslims present with the Prophet(ﷺ) during his last pilgrimage when he delivered his last ‘Khutbah’.Prophet(ﷺ) completed his last ‘Khutbah’, near the summit of ‘Arafat’,whereby the following revelation came down…
 …’This day I have perfected for you your religion and     completed My favor upon you and have approved for                you Islam as religion…’ {Source~ Qur`an~ Surat Ma`idah ~5. A # 3}
Even today, the last ‘Khutbah’ of Prophet  (ﷺ) is passed to every Muslim in every corner of the world through all possible means of communication. Muslims are reminded of it in mosques and in lectures. Indeed the meanings found in this sermon are astounding, touching upon some of the most important rights Allah Almighty has over humanity, and humanity has over each other. Though the Prophet’s soul (peace be upon him) has left this world, his words are still living in our hearts.After praising and thanking Allah…Prophet (ﷺ) said…“O People, lend me an attentive ear, for I know not whether after this year, I shall ever be amongst you again. Therefore listen to what I am saying to you very carefully and TAKE THESE WORDS TO THOSE WHO COULD NOT BE PRESENT HERE TODAY.O People, just as you regard this month, this day, this city as sacred, so regard the life and property of every Muslim as a sacred trust. Return the goods entrusted to you to their rightful owners. Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you. Remember that you will indeed meet your Lord, and that He will indeed reckon your deeds. Allah has forbidden you to take usury (interest); therefore all interest obligations shall henceforth be waived. Your capital, however, is yours to keep. You will neither inflict nor suffer any inequity. Allah has judged that there shall be no interest and that all the interest due to Abbas ibn Abdul Muttalib (Prophet’s (ﷺ) uncle) shall henceforth be waived…

Beware of Satan, for the safety of your religion,he has lost all hope that he will ever be able to lead you astray in big things, so beware of following him in small things.

O People, it is true that you have certain rights with regard to your women, but they also have rights over you. Remember that you have taken them as your wives only under Allah’s trust and with His permission. If they abide by your right then to them belongs the right to be fed and clothed in kindness. Do treat your women well and be kind to them for they are your partners and committed helpers. And it is your right that they do not make friends with any one of whom you do not approve, as well as never to be unchaste.O People, listen to me in earnest, worship Allah, perform your five daily prayers (‘Salah’), fast during the month of Ramadan, and give your wealth in ‘Zakat’ (alms giving). Perform ‘Hajj’ if you can afford it.

All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor does a black have any superiority over a white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to yourselves.Remember, one day you will appear before Allah and answer for your deeds. So beware, do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone.

O People, no prophet or apostle will come after me and no new faith will be born. 

 Reason well, therefore, O People, and understand words which I convey to you. I leave behind me two things, the QURAN and my example, the SUNNAH and if you follow these you will never go astray.All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listen to me directly. Be my witness, O Allah, that I have conveyed your message to your people”.

Will America ever be great again?-By Justin Webb

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(If Biden wins, do liberals have what it takes to put America back on track? Interesting and thought provoking article by Justin Webb. f.sheikh)

What if America rejects Trump but cannot find a new way to live: a new direction, a balm, a form of healing? There are some conventional reasons to fear American carnage, to use the president’s memorable inauguration speech phrase. If the United States unravels — if the Left is as incapable of re-establishing solidarity as Donald Trump has been — then it is not going to be sending aircraft carriers to sort out the Straits of Hormuz or to police the South China Sea. Someone else might have to — or no-one — a rebalancing of world power that won’t make us any freer.

But that’s not the biggest problem for the rest of us, and nor is the loss of American soft power. Hollywood can wither away or (likelier) get lost in its own fundament. We would survive. US universities might dominate international league tables but hey, Oxford and London, not Harvard and Yale, are bringing us (let’s pray) coronavirus vaccines.

No: the reason America dysfunction matters is less tangible but psychologically so much more powerful: the United States is owned by all of us in what we might roughly term the free world. We are of it. It is of us. The experiment in self-government that America (imperfectly) represents seems somehow vital to all our futures because we are invested in it — we have feelings for it, and feelings against it.

Some love it and some loathe it, but more importantly: billions of people around the globe do both. When it comes to America almost no-one is uninterested. We are involved. But it’s equally true, in the George Floyd era, that almost no-one is an out-and-out fan. We feel invested in the project because the project is so huge and boisterous and naïve and inspiring and yet sickeningly flawed at the same time.

When the flaws come to the fore you don’t have to be a psychotherapist to see how our reactions might be affected by our disgust at ourselves — call it Netflix angst. We wish we had not been so keen on the damned place and we want to atone. We should not have loved the Beachboys, or Obama, or been so blind to the horrors of racism and endemic poverty.

As the German publisher and emic Joseph Joffe once wrote of the causes of anti-Americanism, “Seduction is worse than imposition. It makes you feel weak, and so you hate the soft-pawed corrupter, as well as yourself.”

So the question arises, as Trump teeters and the world watches repulsed and attracted in equal measure: what kind of a nation is America? Actually is. Not should be or would be or was: just is. If you opened up the hood, as my American-schooled children would say, what would you find?

Well, most Americans are socialists, at least according to a book out next month — a book not as batty as that sentence makes it seem. The central argument of Evil Geniuses, by the journalist Kurt Andersen, is that by the standard definitions used by Republicans to describe socialism – that’s where most folks on main street actually are.

They want more regulation of Wall St. They want a wealth tax. They think corporations should pay more too. And in a big change — a sea change since the days of Reagan — most think that “circumstances beyond their control cause people to be poor”. When shown the slogan “Communism is American power plus electrification,” most Americans swoon.

Oh alright, I made up the last one. But the view of poverty is eye-catching (it’s from a regular survey conducted by the conservative American Enterprise Institute) and even more so when added to a Gallup poll in 2018 that found a solid majority wanted to reduce inequality.

I had always thought that inequality was of no interest at all to most Americans. I hoped so too,  for mainly anthropological reasons: it made them more interesting. But I may be wrong, and perhaps they are, in fact, as dull as us.

Full article

Hell & Heaven in Buddhism-By Jess Row

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It wouldn’t surprise anyone that Buddhism has a vast literature on suffering, rebirth, and karma, but I often meet people who tell me with great confidence that in Buddhism there’s no heaven or hell. In Buddhist cosmology, hell isn’t just implied; it’s a landscape, precisely and richly described. While there’s no Buddhist Inferno—the closest equivalent would probably be Wu Cheng’en’s sixteenth-century novel Journey to the West, which takes its hero, the Monkey King, to hell for all manner of torments—systematic descriptions of the underworld are laid out in primary scriptures, which have been condensed, memorized, and recited to lay Buddhists in Asia for centuries, as well as dramatized in murals, sculptures, plays, and, more recently, Buddhist theme parks. A passage from the Lamrim Chenmo:

In the Hot Hell the hell-guardians throw the living beings into a hot, blazing iron kettle many leagues across and boil them, deep frying them like fish. Then they impale them through their anuses with blazing iron skewers, which emerge through the crowns of their heads; blazing flames leap forth from their mouths, eyes, noses, ears, and from all of their pores. Then they are placed either on their backs or face down on a blazing iron surface, where they are pounded flat with a hot, blazing iron hammer. In the Extremely Hot Hell the guardians force iron tridents into their victims’ anuses. . . . Their bodies are caught in a hot, blazing iron press; they are thrown head-first into a great blazing iron kettle full of boiling water and boiled . . . until their skin, flesh, and blood are destroyed and only their skeletons remain. Thereupon the guardians fish them out, spread them on the iron surface—where their skin, flesh, and blood regenerate—and then throw them back into the kettle.

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posted by f.sheikh