Reuters AlertNet – Senegal’s Wade hopes grand designs will win votes

Link: Reuters AlertNet – Senegal’s Wade hopes grand designs will win votes.

VOA News – Rallies Wrap Up Before Sunday’s Senegal Election

Link: VOA News – Rallies Wrap Up Before Sunday’s Senegal Election.

cbs2chicago.com – Gambia’s AIDS ‘Cure’ Claim Causes Alarm

Link: cbs2chicago.com – Gambia’s AIDS ‘Cure’ Claim Causes Alarm.

Blogger News Network » Breaking News:”Gambia Gov’t Threatens British Journalist And UN Envoy For Doubting President’s ability to cure aids.”

Link: Blogger News Network » Breaking News:”Gambia Gov’t Threatens British Journalist And UN Envoy For Doubting President’s ability to cure aids.”.

More reaction to the “Yahya Drama”

Assalamu alaikum / greetings, Ousman Ceesay gives the following account on his blog regarding the "Yahya drama" as he calls it, wherein Yahya Jammeh is seen "healing / curing" HIV / AIDS patients. The following account goes thusly:

"It is one thing to read about the madness that is Yahya’s claim to have a cure for AIDS, but to see the drama with your own eyes in moving video is priceless. Our scandanavian based brother Buharry captured the treatment session broadcast live on Gambian television on video. The session is interlaced with recitations from the holy Quran while Yahya could be seen in some scenes rubbing some kind of ointment on semi-nude women. How is that for all the religiosity he waxes poetic about."

Ugh! Why didn’t someone tell me? Or maybe they were just trying to save me the stress! Because I was already upset that the "treatment sessions" were interspersed with the recitations of the Qur’an which I found sickening enough!

Anyway, I’d wanted to leave a comment, but the visual verification is enabled and the "listen link" is not working.  (as it turns out, I did eventually have help posting this to his blog).  However, I really don’t know what else to add but "semi-nude women"?, oh that is real good!

Ugh, that is just sickening to me, and the image that popped in to my head when I read that was, well, eeewww! I got the creepy crawlies just thinking about it!

And there is some more footage on Buharry’s site, he has put up more footage of Yahya Jammeh supposedly treating asthma patients! And from what I’ve heard, the statements from the people who were "treated" are unconvincing.

However, by that time, I just didn’t have the stomach to listen anymore! As I said, hearing that poor child crying was enough to just about send me into tears myself! It’s one thing if grown-ups believe all of this, but when they subject their small children to this, and then bribe them with clothes, sneakers, etc., afterwords, and according to the person describing the scene to me, make fun of the child as well, well, that was just about it for me!

And this is the guy that the majority of Gambians, who bothered to vote anyway, said they wanted as their leader so what can you do? And the ones who didn’t vote, well, if they are complaining about their current situation, they have no right to complain. Say what you want about the disunity of the opposition, but even if the so-called tribalist Ousainou, who some seem to hate more than Yahya Jammeh, were elected (oh the horror), I don’t think you’d find him going on national TV, and even with an international audiance, proclaiming to be some kind of traditional / natural healer who can cure AIDS, asthma, diabetes, etc., and only God knows what it will be next week!

Jammeh is making a national disgrace of himself and The Gambia as a whole! I even heard a parody about the whole thing on, I think it was Network Africa, or some BBC programming! So, instead of people wowing over him, like I’m sure he’d like, they are laughing at him, or at least, the sensible ones are, or they are outright condemning him. If Halifa Sallah or Ousainou Darboe would have been elected, you’d not have seen this kind of foolishness!

But anyway, it seems that some think that Ousainou is just like Jammeh, tribalism and all, and when you have a member of NADD campaigning for the APRC candidate in the recent Parliamentary elections, well, you’ve just got some major problems in the party that was supposed to be the hope of all Gambians. So, basically, it seems to me that you have some who have such a personal disdain for Ousainou Darboe, to the extent that they will campaign for a party whose leader has been responsible for all kinds of trouble, just because they don’t want the opposition candidate, who is a member of the party whose leader they seem to dispise, to win the seat! Which makes me wonder sometimes who, in the opposition, really wants Jammeh to go? Or do any of them? I read something somewhere, basically stating the opinion that none of the opposition really wants Jammeh out, because they are not forceful enough, and they are just content to remain "the opposition".

I don’t know how true that is, so I don’t want to go there. But, suffice it to say, I don’t buy the "Gambians didn’t vote because they were so disenchanted wit the break-up of the opposition that they … " either felt they didn’t have a clear choice, or they wanted to get back at the oppostion somehow. Yeah, and hurt themselves int he process. And I just find all of those excuses to be hooey to me, the people had a clear choice, and it seems that most cchose the status quo, or money, or whatever inducements were handed out to keep them from voting, and they have no one to blame but themselves for that. Democracy only works when you participate, if you don’t participate in the electing of your own leaders and representatives, if you don’t make your voice heard, then democracy doesn’t work. And as they are only 4? opposition members of parliament now, the Gambian people are seeming to say that they are happy with their lot, that they think Jammeh is OK, and that an almost one-party state is OK with them.

Anyway, getting back to the oppositional split, everyone wants to blame *one man* for the break-up of NADD? OK, fine, you want to blame one man, sure, but it’s not Darboe? Who is it? Figure that one out for yourself, if you want to put the blame on *one person*, but I’ll give you a hint, it was a NADD member who campaigned for an APRC candidate, not a UDP one. So what does that say? Wa Juwara would have rather supported a murderous regime, than to either campaign himself (which he could have done, why didn’t he?), or see the UDP candidate get elected. What does that say about NADD? And why don’t the NADD supporters want to address this? Is NADD really the "hope for all Gambians" that some said so loudly and vehemently that they were? But no! They still want to blame Darboe! However, if you have a member of your organization who would so quickly turn on you and support the ruling party, what does that say? You can get upset at the UDP /NRP for breaking from NADD, but goodness! At least they didn’t go and join and campaign for the APRC!

And when this was brought up, someone said "oh a UDP candidate did the same thing, why aren’t you saying something about that!?" And my answer to that question is, that is not relevant here! The truth is, NADD, and by extention its members, were supposed to be "the big hope for all Gambians", they were supposed to be the revolutionary change for Gambian politics! But they weren’t! They were not, for whatever reason, able to check whatever personal problems they had between them at the door, and thus be able to come together to draft a way forward for Gambians. And for wahtever reason, the coalition did not work out. And I think that many were responsible for the break-down of NADD, and I’m not going to get into that now.

But you just can’t help people, the majority of whom, seem content with things as they are! In America, we’ve got an election coming up of our own, I think I’ll concentrate on that for a while!

Because you can’t help people who don’t want to be helped!  It’s like drug addicts, or people in abusive relationships, you on the outside might be able to see their problem all too clearly, and they may even know they have a problem themselves, but they don’t want to do the hard work that it takes to change their situation. So they continue the destructive behavior, continue the downward spiral, which, in turn, makes things ever worse for them, until they decide that enough is enough for them and they take steps to break the cycle!

And Yahya Jammeh, like the addictive drug, or the abusive spouse, will forever get increasingly worse! He will become more abusive, and "increasing doses" of his madness would be needed in order to make the people think that he is invencible, super-human, and that nothing can get rid of him but God, and that even if the people don’t like him, tough! He is here to stay, and no "democracy" can change that.

Jammeh only has as much power as the people allow him to have! Once you challenge a bully, I mean really challenge him, they normally revert to the cowards they actually are and run away! Or, they summon their military men, the ones loyal to them, to subdue the people that they are challenging, but you *can’t* kill everyone, else you will have nothing or no one left to rule! If the people in Guinea or Senegal, or all of the many other places can challenge their leaders to be accountable, than what about The Gambia? There is no reason why the Gambian people can not stand up and demand change. That is, unless they *don’t* want change. And that is all I have to say for now, I could go on and on, but I won’t!  It all just makes me too tired!

Footage of President? Jammeh Treating HIV /AIDS Patients! (you’ve got to see this, that is if you have a strong stomach)

Assalamu alaikum, I would say you’ve got to see this, but this is absolutely pathetic! And heartbreaking, they actually force a small child to be "treated"!

I almost cried hearing this poor child scream! And these "treatments" are interspersed with the recitation of the Qur’an! Of all things! Anyway, click here to watch, if you dare! I mean, really, it’s one thing to read about this in the news, or hear about it secondhand, but to see it!?  Now that is a completely different matter! 

The Absp;ite Inaccessibility of RealPlayer!

comes another rant about inaccessibility!

I was trying to burn a CD (am still trying to burn it as I type this), using RealPlayer.  Now, the tracks I’d downloaded came from Rhapsody (where you can find a lotof nasheeds by the way), so you either have to use Rhapsody (which is completely inaccessible as far as trying to burn a CD goes), or you can use RealPlaery.  Now, the problems I have with RealPlayer are many!  Firstly, the keyboard shortcuts given in the Help documentation don’t seem to work (or they dont’ seem to work as far as I can tell).  Neither does the Jaws commands, as they are for earlier versions of RealPlayer.

Also, when you tab arround the screen (assuming you don’t get stuck in a window which says "click here to find out more!" which I’m assuming is some sort of ad), when you tab to something, say "burn your CD", and hit your spacebar, as you would normally do when you come to a button like that, it will either do nothing, or do something entirely different than what you had wanted it to do!  This morning, it was to play a song which I’d not even selected to put on my CD!

Now, for many programs which have not been the most accessible, if you just take your Jaws cursor andmove around the screen, most of the itme, you can find what you’re looking for and click on it.  Now, the way I normally do this is to use the Control Tab key combination, find what I want and click on it.  Now, Jaws will not let me do this!  Thus, what I have to do is just use the plain arrow keeys, which means going space by space and hearing "blank blank blank blank" until I find the button I want, assuming that I even find it all and I don’t end up, say at the top of the screen when the button I’m looking for is at the bottom!

As you can imagine, trying to burn a CD, with such an inaccessible product, can be tedious and time-consuming, when it shoudl only tkae a few minutes!

     And becuase online music providers (well most of them anyway) have come up with their own proprietary software that you have touse to burn their music, that means that I can’t just go and use a more accessible product.  And Napster and Windows Media Player aren’t much better, at least the last time I tried them, and I liked the way that Real Player burns their CD’s anyway!  Or better yet, I’d rather use Winamp which is a whole heck of a lot more accessible than RealPlayer.  But as I said before, I can’t use it!

Anyway, Inshallah, I’ll come back and correct any typing (or other) erros!  I’m just writing this while the CD was actually burning.  Now, I’ve got to go and try this again!  If anyone has any hints, please let me know!  Because I just sat here for like 30 minutes trying to find the "burn your CD button, I mean, Jaws would read it, but the cursor wouldn’t actually be on it!  I don’t know how to expalin that, maybe a blind computer user would understand!  They really need to start hring more of us to test their products for accessibility!  But I guess they think we can just get our sighted friends and family members to help us and they won’t have to invest that kind of time or money in making their products not only visually appealing but easy for someone with little or no vision to use as well.

And I’m so drained from this whole experience that I don’t even feel like putting any categories on the post!

Comments!

Assalamu alaikum, against my "better judgment", I’ve set comments to unmoderated.  I apologize in advnace if an offensive comment gets through, and if that happens, I’ll try to take it down ASAP.  We’ll see if tis makes it easier for people to comment, since I’ve had some people say that they have found it hard to comment on my blog, etc.  So we’ll see if this doesn’t liven the discussion up a bit.

Super Bowl!

Assalamu alaikum, talk about really letting this dunya get the best of me, the Indianapolis Colts won the Super Bow last night!

Not as someone who is originally from Indiana, this is just absolutely wonderful for me!

I remember when the Colts first moved to Indianapolis.  Now, I was about 8 or 9 years old or so, so I really don’t remember the specifics of how it happened, it was just like, all of a sudden, we had a football team!  And I remember my dad would listen to the Colts games when we would be going to take me to meet the bus on Sunday afternoons, which would take me back to the school for the blind in Indianapolis.

and what I do remember is that the Colts pretty much couldn’t win a game to save thier lives!  I mean, I think they were about the losingest team, at least it seemed that way to me!

So, for them to come back and wint he SuperBowl, is just well, exciting!  It’s just too bad the Pacers couldn’t do the same when they made it to the NBA finals back in, goodness when was it, 2000?  Was it that year or 2001?  I can’t remember now lol.

But anyway.  I’ll say a big Woo-hoo! and be gone for now!

Inshallah, tomorrow I’ll post my thoguhts on a new adapative technology toy I’m trying called FreedomBox, and I’m waiting on my Key to Freedom, which is a screen-reader called System Access which is loaded on to a U3 smart drive which allows you to plug the device into any comptuer which has anything from Windows 98 or later running on it and a USB port, and the software will start running off of the smart drive and will immediately start talking, thus you don’t have to install it onto the comptuer you are using.

I can think of a million reasons why this would be helpful, but Inshallah, once I try it, I’ll post my thoughts.

And the same for FreedomBox.  But in the mean time you can go here to read more about the company behind Freedom Box, Ssytem Access, and their other products.

Clarification and more thoughts « Umar Lee

Assalamu alaikum, Umar Lee gives a clarification to his series regarding the "rise and fall of the Salafi dawa" in the US.  I left a comment on his blog but am posting it below also.  I really wish I could do a better job of conveying my "misgivings", as it wre, regarding the "Salafi dawa", while at the same time, also conveying the message that, in actuality, I don’t mean any ill will toward anyone who choses this path.  Though I’m sure that some "traditional Muslims" have labelled the "Salafi dawa" as deviant, I hesitate in doing so, as well, I don’t have the knowledge to do that, and secondly, I’m not sure that I really feel comfortable with using a label which I don’t like, nor want, applied to msyelf, thus, I just wont’ use it on others!  I’ll leave that to the schoalrs who actually know what they are doing.  But anyway, find my htoguths below.  After this, I’ll really do my best to try and stay away fromt he issue.  And Inshallah, I’ll concentrate on pleasing and coming lcoser to Allah, and try my best not to worry too much about *mere mortals* will think or say of me.

Comments begin:

Assalamu alaikum, "following the madhhab of the Prophet" "following the Qur’an and Sunnah", all of that sounds really good.  OK, so let’s just forget that I follow a madhhab for a second.  Let’s just say that I came to Islam today, and don’t know anything except La ilaha ill Allah, Muhammadah Rasulullah.

Where do I go from here?  If I want to "follow the Qur’an and Sunnah", where do I go?  Who are the "correct" scholars, and who are the "deviant" ones?  When you talk about Fiqh?  What kind of "fiqh" do you follow?  Who or what do you take your knowledge from?  When you talk about "referring it back to the Qur’an and Sunnah" "the book and the messenger" how do you go about doing this?

What if I don’t know Arabic?  Are the English  translations of the Qur’an, Bukhari and Muslim, etc., are they good translations?

     When you take into account the thousands of ahadith which are out there, how do you try to operationalize this and make this in to the "Sunnah"?  Do you think that the hadith and Sunnah are the same thing?  Do you think that Muslims were deviant from the time of the Salaf until Ibn Tamiyah came along?  What of the disagreements between the prophet’s companions and the salaf as a whole?  Should there be differences of opinion on a given issue?  Would you think or consider that the prophet may have done something differently, such as praying in a slightly different way at a given time, as an example?

What exactly do you think is *wrong* with the people who do not follow the Salafi dawa?  Where do you think we stand as Muslims?  Do you think we are deviants, hypocrites, kafir?

Do you think that those of us who do not subscribe to the Salafi dawa are "not following the Quran and Sunnah"?  If not, how so?  What do you think we are doing wrong?

And all of these questions, along with the comments regarding your series of posts, are exactly why I *can’t* follow the Salafi dawa.  Because which "dawa" is correct?  Because even in the "Salafi dawa", you see people labeling Shaykh So-and-So as "on the haqq", while at the same time labelling another shaykh as "off it", as you term it, or "deviatn", or whatever.  Is this really "getting back to the Qur’an and Sunnah"?

Methinks not.  Getting back to the Quran and Sunnah means following what Allah commands of us, and staying away from what He dislikes.  It means following the Sunnah, and this doesn’t mean quoting a few ahadith here and there, and making a ruling from that, but trying to find out, exactly how the Prophet lived, how he treated people, his wives, his family, his neighbors, his companions, and try to exemplify that!  "traditional", as it has come to be called, does not mean "progressive", or a "watered-down" "feel-good" version of Islam.  In fact, it seems to me that "traditional Muslims" and "Salafis", really have a lot more in common than we do wit the "progressives", etc.  However, when reading comments and reading things by some who call to the "Salafi dawa", you’d think that they were the only "real" Muslims, and the rest of us are at best, "deviant" or "astray", and at worst, "kafir", or at least, heading dangerously close to kufr.  It’s almost as if the rest of us aren’t even Muslim at all, which as we see, can lead to a dangerous slope, as it pertains to declaring Muslims as apostates, and then having the very fringe groups saying it is thus OK to kill them.  It would seem to me that even if one follows the "Salafi dawa", there has to be some recognition as to the danger of abandoning the seeking of knowledge, or Islamic scholarship entirely for a "cut-and-paste" "everything reduced to a slogan", "anyone can be a scholar and make a fatwa" kind of Islam. 

But anyway, my point is, to me, the "Salafis" are not much different than those who would call themselves"Traditionalists", though I’m not sure I really like that word!  I’d say that all of us are trying to follow the Qur’an and Sunnah, and I don’t think that any orthodox practicing Muslim worth their salt would say otherwise.

Even Salafis have to have some sort of methodology, some sort of fiqh (which is all a madhhab really is anyway).  You have to have some methodology for deriving rulings and applying them in daily life.  Not everyone has that ability.  Not everyone can just go through the Qur’an, go through the varius collections of ahadith, and pick out rulings.  We, even Salafis, have to follow people who know more than us, and get rulings from them.

To me "following the madhhab of the prophet and his companions" sounds good, but how, in actuality, do you put that into practice?  To me, a "traditionalist" would say that you would pick a madhhab, as the four madhhabs do use the Qur’an and haddith to derive rulings (and you think that we dont?).

Basically, what I’m saying is that the slogans of "following the Qur’an and Sunnah", or "following the madhhab of the prophet", just don’t work, unless you can come up with some sort of framework to put those sorts of things into practice.  My question is, among many others by now, is how do the Salafis do that?  What is their foundation for their methodology?  OK, "following the Qur’an and Sunnah" I get that, but how?  How does the average, every day (and dont’ forget I’ve not put my madhhabi cap back on yet), Muslim do this?  Let’s say I follow Scholar A today, but then all of a sudden, receive an email from a group declaring that Scholar A is "off the manhaj", what do I do?  How do I, as an average, every day Muslim, know who is right and who is wrong?  Do you see where this could get very confusing?  Do you see how this could be not only confusing, but damaging to the faith of converts? 

Anyway, I’m, frankly, getting very exhausted over this whole discussion.  Watching the turn the comments on your series has taken is enough to make me want to stay as clear away from the "Salafi dawa", as I can.  And frankly, perhaps this is the wrong place to either ask my questions or explain my position, because to the Salafis, or to most of them anyway, those of us who ascribe to "traditional Islam", are deviants who are not "following the Quran and Sunnah" anyway, (I mean why would your slogan need to be "going back to the Qur’an and Sunnah" anyway if you thought that "traditional" Muslims were already doing this?) and perhaps you feel that our questions just don’t need to be answered. 

There may indeed be many cultural things that many Muslims have mixed up into Islam, however, throwing away 1,000 years of Islamic scholarship in the name of "going back to the Salaf us Salih" just doesn’t seem right to me, it’s like re-inventing the wheel, or throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Perhaps the healing can start by firstly not criticizing Muslims who follow a different "manhaj" than yourself, and also realizing that there may be different opinions on a given issue, and perhaps once people realize that there are more than *one way* or *one group of scholars* who are suitable to follow, we might start getting somewhere as Muslims.  Perhaps instead of making sarcastic, snide remarks against scholars whose particular "manhaj" you don’t agree with, perhaps you, as somehow who says they follow the "Salafi dawa", could work on putting that house in order

Personally, we as Muslims are in some serious trouble and it’s really going to take some serious house-cleaning, both individually or collectively, before we can get our house in order.  Going back to some mythical time, that perhaps never existed anyway (as there were schisms among the Muslims soon after the prophet’s death anyway), just isn’t going to work.  Saying "Oh well the traditioanl Muslims had deviants among them too", doesn’t take away from the fact that there might be some "deviants" within the "Salafis" as well.  And certain strains of "Salafism", such as the jihadi / takfiri varieyt, you can’t just sweep them under the rug, prtend it is the figment of the evil mind of the Western media’s imagination, and then just not address those and other issues which are uncomfortable to you. 

But I guess it’s easier,and I include myself in this, to criticize everyone else, point out everyone else’s shortcomings, than it is to work on your own shortcomings and to strive to make yourself a better person.

Link: Clarification and more thoughts « Umar Lee.

America: The Greatest Country in the World?

*** note:  This is a post in progress, please forgive the typos, etc.  I just wanted to try to put this down as best as I can, and also get it published, and if I put it in draft form, I’ll just forget about it probably, plus, I wanted soem comments while I was trying to work out my thoughts.Assalamu alaikum / greetings, again, reading blogs has got me to thinking again. 

Maybe some Western Muslims have a superiority complex toward Muslims "in the East", I don’t know, and on thinking on it, maybe I have a little of that myself.  I mean, I was raised to think that America was so great, because we were free, and we were the greatest country in the world, and how so many people fought and died so we could be what we are today.  No matter that we have slavery, or that we stole land from tohers, as well, for us to "be the country we are today".

I guess as an American Muslim, I d still habe an attachment to "my homeland" as it were, and perhaps some would say that this is wrong of me.  To be honest, I’m quite conflicted as an American Muslim.

On one hand, I feel that for the most part Americans are good, fair-minded people, however, when it comes to Islam, and perhaps maybe race issues too, somehow it’s different.  I’m really not sure how to explain what I’m feeling.  I’ts like, yeah, America is a good country, but then our government goes and does things like start a war that many saw as unnecessary, set up a prison at Guantanamo, and target Muslims and Arabs, for terrorism-related offenses.

So hmmm, yeah, I’m conflicted.  Becuase on one hand, I feel like I’m in the "let’s just make hijra" camp, and then ont he other I’m like, hey, I have a right to be here just as much as anyone!      

It’s probably not the easiest for me to be a Muslim here, a commentor on Umm Zaid’s blog brought up being able to pray on time as an example, and it’s funny that I didn’t think of htat.  Because I’d gone on this "at least I can practice Islam freely here", etc., trip, and sometimes that is not necessarily the truth.  Like when I’m working, for example, I find myself having to juggle my prayer times to fit in with my lunch and breaks, and many times it just doesn’t work, and then I’m struggling to pray my prayers on time,a nd then feeling guiltywith myself when I don’t, because as I was taught "work isn’t an excuse for not praying on time".  So what do I do, because I can’t just stop work and start praying when the time comes.  So I just do my best.  I find that it becomes easier once Daylight Saving Time kicks in, because then, the only pryaer I have to pray at work is Dhuhr.  But when we are back on standard time, I have to be careful, and sometimes I will even pray Asr before I leave the office to go home, once my shift has ended, becuase if I wait until I get home, it could possibly be Maghrib already, and then I’ve missed the time.  So definitely, praing on time is a struggle, unless, of course, you’re not working, or you’re self-employed, or you are in a setting where people are flexible with you.

Regarding making hijra and being able to practice Islam freely, perhaps I have some serious misinformation on this, but there are many places where you can’t practice Islam freely, though I guess there are many places that you could.  However, my strong reaction to making hijra stems from the fact that some seem to want to use it as an end-al, be-all to every problem plaguing that Muslims living int he West.

Instead of addressing the issues and trying to come to some sort of workable solution you here something like, "you should make hijra", or "oh if we coudl jsut make hijra" or "if we only had a kaliphate", then the "then" of that statement woudl be "then everythin would be perfect".

And I just don’t think that is the case.  Because then you make hijra and then what?  Making hijra is all well and good if you have a plan in place once you get there, and also, if you have the understanding that the grass isn’t going to always be greener onthe other side of that fence. 

And for me, if I make hijra, where would I go, where I could practice Islam freely, and have a good life for myself, where I wouldn’t have to sacrifice things like health-care, good education, etc.  Because let’s say I make hijra, I’m a woamn OK, if I want to ahve children, I have to amke sure that there are good services and health-care for pregnant women and children, etc., and that there is a good educational system in place for them once they get older. 

And then of course, my husband would have to find a good job to support us, so we have to consider that.  So my point is, making hijra is all well and good, but you still gotta eat and you still gotta support yourself, and I think that many who tout the "make hijra" mantra don’t really think about that, and if you mention these things they say something like, "you gotta sacrifice", etc.  And I just think it is all well and good for *other* people to say that when they are not in your shoes, and they, as of now, haven’t yet made hijra themselves.

Anyway, I just had to put that out there, becuase it’s like those of us who say, hey, we odn’t like how some things are here in America, but we are going to stay here, and do the best we can, and try to be as good of Muslims as we can, are treated as though we are less-than, becuase we aren’t just dying to jump onthenext plane to, well, pick a country. 

I’m not anti-hijra, but I’m also honest with myself and know that, not only would it be a struggle and some sacrifices would have to be made, but also that making hijra would not necessarily be a practical solution either. 

The way I’ve come to look at it is that I’m here, in America, at this point in my life, and Allah, as of yet, ahs not made a way for me to go anywhere else.  Perhaps He will, in the future, but at this point, he ahs placed me where He has placed me, and I’m content witht hat! 

It may not be easy here, but, if I go to that "other place", it may not necessarily be easy there either!  I think when people talk of "making hijra", they are looking for some magic Muslim eutopia, which doesn’t exist!  Perhaps there might indeed be a place which is better for Muslims, and if there is, I’d sure like some recommendations. 

Anyway, the whole pint is, I don’t see this whole issue as a black-and-white issue.  America hs its problems, but it has its good points too.  And I’m definitely not going to purposefully think I’m superior to oher Muslims because I’m a convert, or I had to go through some rough times, or whatever.  Allah alone knows our hearts, knows our deeds, knows our struggles, so far be it for me to say I’m superior to anyone!

   

BBC NEWS | Africa | President’s ‘HIV cure’ condemned

Link: BBC NEWS | Africa | President’s ‘HIV cure’ condemned.

BBC NEWS | Health | Expert doubts widespread HIV risk

Link: BBC NEWS | Health | Expert doubts widespread HIV risk.

Thoughts

Assalamu alaikum, well, Umar Lee and Tariq Nelson have me thinking again, along with Umm Zaid, of course.

The thing is, I’m not sure exactly where to start. And I apologize in advance if all of this seems like a jumbled up mess. Sometimes it’s just easier for me to put all of my thoughts together in one post, than to do it in separate posts. So here goes…

***** On the Salafi Dawa

I have stated numerous times on my blog, or at least if I didn’t, I’ve sure thought it often enough, that I have a lot of problems, oops, maybe that is not the right word, let’s say "concerns", with the "Salafi dawa", mostly because my experience of the "Salafi dawa" has been one of harshness, extremism (and not in the progressive Islam, Western-friendly extremism) either.

I’m talking about calling most other Muslims, at least those that "are not on their manhaj", as "kafirs", "people of bida", "musriks", etc., etc. And we’re talking about labelling the vast majority of Muslims here these sorts of terms, and as Umar pointed out, as all of this went on, it even started to affect the "Salafis" as well.

I’m also talking about the "you gotta marry now, ’cause it’s half your religion and it’s the Sunnah, and if you don’t you’re going to commit zina because you’re a convert" stuff.

Another thought which also occurred to me was that while many "Salafis", went on and on about Muslims "blindly following" others, as I perused Umar Lee’s series, it occurred to me that many so-called Salafis "blindly followed" others, especially as it related to following "the scholars that were in", versus the "scholars that were out", or "off it", as it were. And when Umar Lee stated that many people had never even heard of the scholars that they were admonished to "not follow" because of their "deviancy", I thought to myself, it sure sounds like the pot calling the kettle black, and it seemed like the "Salafi dawa" was becoming a victim of its own medicine so to speak. Because after you get done "bida-ing" and "shirk-ing" and "kafir-ing /kufr-ing" everyone, who is left but to start in on yourselves.

The problem I have with the "Salafi dawa" is the seeming discarding of 1,000 years of Islamic scholarship because it’s "wrong", or "those Muslims were not on clear guidance while we are, because we follow the Pious Predecessors". Who are the "pious predecessors" anyway? My understanding is that they are the Prophet, his companions, the generation after them, and the generation that came after that? But what is a "predecessor" anyway? The word "Predecessor" means, the one that came before, for example, "this model of a car was the predecessor to that". So, who did the "pious predecessors preceed", who did they come before?

Along that same general theme, when we are talking about "following the Qur’an and Sunnah", the Qur’an part is easy enough, but what about the "Sunnah"? I didn’t think that the hadith collections were even put together / published until something like 200 – 300 years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). So would this still be "during the time of the Pious Predecessors"? But not only this, if you’re only going with the "pious Predecessors" as your guide to "following the Qur’an and the Sunnah", are you saying that the Muslim luminaries who came after them were somehow "misguided", until people like Al-Albani, Ibn Baz, etc., and uh, yourself, came along? That just seems rather arrogant, and self-presumptuous, for people to think like that.

I guess maybe it would seem silly to say that I don’t have a problem with those who follow the "Salafi dawa", but I have a problem, or at least, strong reservations about the "Salafi dawa" itself, because it smacks of what I remember during my Christian days, when I’d go to churches of a particular denomination which would say something to the affect of "we’re right, those others are wrong / misguided, and we follow the Bible exactly as it is supposed to be followed while the others don’t". And when the "Salafis" talk about things like the "purified Sunnah", and "The Quran and Sunnah without any corrections, deletions, or alterations", and talk about the "saved sect", etc., it really bothers me!

I can’t speak to a lot of the fitna which happened in the 1990’s that Umar Lee alluded to, because I just simply wasn’t there, having become a Muslim in December of 2000, but I think that I might have caught the very end of all of that. I remember sites like TROID and Salafi Publications and QSS, and I remember coming across terms like "the purified Sunnah", etc., and remember thinking "the purified Sunnah" as opposed to what? And I remember one of the ladies who I gave my shahadah to talked about how I had to get married, because it was half my religion, and it was the Sunnah, and I would end up committing zina if I didn’t, because, well, I was a convert, and ya know, we’re just prone to that, because deep down, we American convert women are just, well, prone to that sort of thing. But I remember saying to this woman, "get married? What are you talking about, I’ve just become a Muslim, I don’t know how to pray, I’m just now trying to learn my Islam, and you want me to get married, are you crazy"? And maybe she said something about "but oh your husband can teach you", but I, at the time, didn’t want my husband to "teach me" anything. It would be one thing if I did find a "person of knowledge" to marry, but at that time, I couldn’t see myself marrying someone that I didn’t know "just ’cause he’s on the haqq", or a "person of knowledge" or a "great scholar" or whatever. I wanted to get to know my perspective spouse in a halal way, I wanted to find someone who would respect me, my personality, my intellect (deficient though it may be to some, tee hee), etc.

And at the time, I just didn’t feel comfortable rushing into a marriage when I didn’t even quite feel comfortable in my own skin as a new Muslimah. And not to mention all of the horror stories I’d heard about convert Muslim women rushing into marriages with men they didn’t know, and in some cases, men they couldn’t even communicate with because the men didn’t speak English very well, and then to have some of the women find out that their husbands had other wives back in their home country, etc., and I remember thinking, "Subhanallah, thank God I didn’t end up like that". I guess that is rather selfish, and as it was, I did end up in a bad marriage, I think, because I was afraid of not being married, and even though I resisted it at first, I think I inevitably fell into the "you gotta be married" trap, as if not being married didn’t quite make you Muslim enough. Because when my first husband came along, I felt like I had to settle, because I was afraid I’d not be able to find anyone else, ’cause I had a dog, ’cause I was blind and had a disability, because I couldn’t cook "Muslim food", which I guess meant Arab or Pakistani or whatever "predominantly Muslim culture" food, depending on the ethnicity of whomever I married,

I mean, take your pick on the reasons, but I think the main reason was the fear of being alone. And that fear, along with the push to get married, I think, in the end, did affect me.

But anyway. I found traditional Islam quite by accident, in part because of some email lists I ended up joining, and also because of my research on the Maliki madhhab, as I had a dog at the time, and someone had told me that in the Maliki madhhab the dog was considered to be pure, etc., which, in turn, led me to traditional Islam. I can’t say for sure if there are "traditional Muslim" groups which took the same sorts of approaches and followed the same course as the "Salafi dawa" did in the US, however, that has not been my experience. I’ve seen some on Umar’s blog refer to "sufi burnout", when "Salafi burnout" was mentioned, and perhaps this has happened, as I think that some enter Islam, not so much because of any "belief" in "la ilaha ill Allah", but because they want to belong to a "community", group, or "movement", and then they get sadly disappointed, because they’re not accepted, or the "community" isn’t as "perfect" as they imagined that it would be. Or, they end up practicing a rigid, harsh form of Islam, whatever it is and from whatever "movement" it comes from, and they just can’t maintain it.

But what really bothers me is the "exposing" of people who "don’t follow your manhaj" or do something else that is deemed to be "wrong"in the eyes of the one doing the exposing. It would be one thing, I guess, if one has the knowledge to refute such people, that would be one thing, but you have the "refuting" of certain people, concepts, etc., along with the tampering of certain Islamic texts to support whatever positions your "manhaj" happens to hold.

And the thing I keep thinking is "if you’re on the haqq", why would you even need to "expose" others as being "off it", and tamper and change texts to suit your position, I mean, this to me, is disingenuous, to say the least! If the "Salafi dawa" is the truth, then wouldn’t it stand the test of time, as "traditional Islam" has?

When I first started reading about traditional Islam, I came across sites like Masud Ahmed Khan’s site, the Modern Muslima site, among many others. And I know that I read articles / sites promoting the "Salafi dawa", but in reading many sites from many different perspectives, "traditional" Islam, as it has become called, just appealed to me more.

Perhaps this would be a wrong way of putting things, but in my mind, you had people, "traditional Muslims", who took their knowledge from people who in turn took their knowledge from people who in turn took their knowledge from others, and this chain of transmission went all the way back to the Prophet himself. Now how is that for "following the Quran and Sunnah". On the other hand, you had people who seemed to be saying, "Islam up until the scholars we follow came along was corrupted, the people were ignorant, the people were misguided and we are here to purify the Sunnah, and take it back to the clear and pristine Islam of the pious predecessors, and we’re on the haqq and we’re the saved sect because the hadith says that there are 73 sects and 72 of them will be in the Hellfire", and on and on and on. that just didn’t appeal to me, because it reminded me too much of the Christianity that I had just left. And I like the "chain of transmission back to the prophet", and the ijazas that are given to people, authorizing them to teach others.

The system of traditional Islam, as I came to understand it, seemed on more solid ground than the "Salafi dawa". Because you had a system where your teachers were authorized to teach you, and perhaps, at some point, you would in turn be authorized to teach others! And that just seemd a lot better than the "do-it-yourself", "just pick up the Quran, Bukhari and Muslim and you’ll be fine" kind of stuff I seemed to be getting. And on "blind following" or taqlid, even the "Salafis" have to do taqlid to someone, i.e., following a trustworthy scholar, if they need an answer to something. So what is wrong with that? To me, it’s safer to stay on something which has been tested, where people have rigorously refined the various schools of fiqh, etc., to stay on something where the chains of transmission of knowledge can be verified to go back to the Prophet himself (peace be upon him), than to go with something that started a few hundred years ago, from someone who for whatever reason decided that all of the other Muslims were "deviant" except him / them.

However, having said all of this, I can also see where someone would do the same amount of reading as me, read the same websites as me, and come to an altogether different conclusion. I may have strong positions / opinions about the "Salafi dawa", however at the end of the day, our goal as Muslims should be to please Allah as best as we can, to strive to be as good of Muslims as we can, to purify our heart and our intentions, to love for our brothers and sisters what we love for ourselves, etc. And that should be our main goal, not spending our time "exposing" Shaykh so-and-so, or "exposing" his or that institute, just because you don’t think that they are "following the correct manhaj".

And if anyone is going to criticize anything, there is a certain adab that should be maintained, and one must have the knowledge to do so, and the proofs to back up what they are saying! As far as the use of the term "Wahabi", perhaps it is a valid term, I don’t know, but I won’t go so far as to say that it is "invalid", and this is something I’ll need to ask / research.

But I don’t think that most Muslims, at least those who actually try to uphold Islam, would wish shaykhs like Ali Al-Timimi, et. al, locked away just because they are "Salafi", or whatever, that is just silly!  And as a Muslim, it hurts me that other Muslims would make such assumptions about their fellow brohers and sisters.  Whatever happened to assuming the best about your Muslim brethren?  Isn’t that from the Sunnah?  Instead, it’s so easy to just think the worst because you perceive other Muslims not to be as upset, or outraged, or whatever, because of some wrong which has been committed against a shaykh, teacher, or someone else that you hold dear.

As Umm Zaid commented, perhaps the lack of Muslim response was because of lack of knowledge, or fear of all of us being lumped in the category of "extremist". To be honest, I don’t know what these brothers that Umar Lee alludes to did or said for them to get locked away, perhaps they just said something that got twisted and turned into something it was not, I don’t know. But I bristle at the fact that "those of us who are not Salafis", wish ill for these brothers, just ’cause they are Salafi! I can’t speak for everyone, but I can definitely speak for myself and say that I’d not wish that on anyone, no matter what "manhaj" they follow! Because today, it could be happening to the "Salafis", and tomorrow, it could be right at the "traditionalist’s" back door! I’d say that "Salafis" and "traditional Muslims" have just about the same beliefs, as far as Islam goes, i.e., we don’t have differing views on homosexuality, modesty, premarital sex, etc. The issues deal in differences and disagreements on fiqh, aqida, tasawuf, etc. So I’d say that we have more incommon, than any differences we might have, and my problem is with the people who want to dishonestly exploit these differences in the name of "being right" or "calling out those who engage in shirk, kufr, and bida". And yes, I’ve also come across those articles "exposing" so-and-so, for their "misguidance", I remember seeing some article criticizing Bilal Phillips, it had something to do with pictures or something, I can’t remember, and the article went on and on about how he was wrong, and I couldn’t even understand what they were even talking about, the whole article just went way over my head. But I definitely remember some of the "exposing" that went on, and I just remember thinking how sad it all was. I also remember coming across some Nuh Ha Mim Keller articles and someone telling me that I shouldn’t read those articles because they have errors in them, etc., though at the time I didn’t know what "errors" there were, and I just kind of said, "OK, thanks", and I guess I didn’t take the advice to heart *smile*.

Regarding Muslim organizations not catering to converts, or only catering to the "educated" people, well, I can definitely understand that frustration, I get kind of frustrated too, because there is no one to teach me Arabic in Braille, and wehn I go to events, things aren’t always "accessible", however, you just have to understand, that there are limited resources, and I guess my reaction to all of this is that, instead of getting mad and bemoaning how "converts are ignored", which I think many times they are, I try to find ways to, if not make myself fit in, to just find my own niche! Because it’s not the "community" that makes me a Muslim, it’s how I serve Allah, and how I strive to follow his commands and stay away from what he has told us to stay away from that matters!

Perhaps if we all just focused on what "we" are doing, instead of what "everyone else" is doing, we’d all be a lot better off. And if someone is "doing something wrong", why not give him or her nasiha in private, with respect, and with good adab! If you have problems / concerns with Shaykh Z, or Shaykh Y, why not contact them privately and voice them or get clarification? Perhaps that would have stopped a lot of the fitna that went on. I dont’ know.

OK, so this turned out to be just "one thought" out of the series that I’d wanted to talk about, but I’ll just end it now, as I know I’ve touched on many of these things before.

baynews9.com – News: Tornadoes “devastating to community”

Link: baynews9.com – News: Tornadoes "devastating to community".

FRONTLINE/WORLD . Canada – The Cell Door . Interview With Sheik Hamza Yusuf . PBS

Assalamu alaikum, found this via the Mere Islam blog. BTW, I tried to leave a comment on his blog, but alas, the "word graphic of death" appeared, and the "click here to listen" link, didn’t work. Anyway, such as life for a blind computer user.

Link: FRONTLINE/WORLD . Canada – The Cell Door . Interview With Sheik Hamza Yusuf . PBS.