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Islam made lawful the consumption of the flesh of goats, sheep, cows, camels, fish, deer, geese, chickens, ducks, rabbits and game birds but made unlawful the consumption of the flesh of swine. The question is why pork in particular? And is this prohibition arbitrary, discriminatory and whimsical? Is it a strategy adopted by Islam to stand out among other religions as the one which prohibits pork? Or is this prohibition based on sound, scientific arguments made for the best interest of man, physical and spiritual? 
In answer to the third question, namely that Islam prohibited pork merely to stand out amongst other religions for this prohibition, let me say from the onset that Islam is not the only religion that prohibits pork.  Before Islam, Judaism did, and so did Christianity as testified by the Bible itself: In the Old Testament consumption of pork is explicitly forbidden: Read more »

Of all social evils and personal tragedies, the consumption of alcoholic drinks is the most pernicious and destructive. It is, as the prophet pbuh calls it, “the mother of all evils”. Indeed, how many homes broken by an alcoholic father or mother! How many murders, suicides, homicides triggered by excess of drinking! How many rapes committed because of intoxicants! How many incestuous sexual relations! How many innocent people treated cruelly and unfairly! How many bankruptcies and squandered fortunes because of drinking bouts! How many mental disorders and nervous breakdown related to alcohol consumption! How many women and children stained with ….How many celebrities dragged in the mud of scandals because of drinking! How many billions swallowed up in drinking! How many digestive ailments, heart failure caused! And the list goes on and on. Read more »

When one has reached the apex of achievement in a given area thereby gaining absolute confidence in the truthfulness of his/her beliefs and findings, one is naturally predisposed to meet and face up to any challenge thereto related . More, one is prepared to provide skeptics with the ways whereby they can prove him/her wrong.

That is what is called a falsification test— a common contemporary requirement in the field of scientific research by which a researcher provides the scientific community with ways that can prove whether the theory he/she is propounding is scientifically valid or invalid. If the theory stands the test then it is proved true and valid.

An analogy suggested by Dr. Miller eloquently illustrates the falsification test: after completing an exam a student writes a note to the instructor saying: ‘this exam is perfect. There are no mistakes. [Check the grammar, the syntax, the vocabulary, the style, read between the lines]* Find one mistake if you can!” Read more »

 I profoundly believe in God and in the Hereafter. Atheists and agnostics don’t. Nonetheless, they are my brothers in humanity.

In this article I am going to tackle one of the most controversial stories in the Bible and the Qur’an, namely Abraham’s sacrifice of his son. Being a Muslim, I will be looking into it from an Islamic perspective. In a nutshell the story goes like this: in a dream/vision (one of the various manifestations of divine revelation) Abraham sees himself slaughtering his son who was then in his early teens. He informs the latter thereof and gives him the freedom to choose any course of action. The son unhesitatingly complies with what he understood was God’s command. When Abraham was on the point of slaughtering his son, God called out to him that he had fulfilled the vision. The son is ransomed with a big sacrificial animal (probably a ram).

“What a creepy story!”, would the nonbeliever exclaim,” what father is that who is so intent on slaughtering his own son! What God is that who commands a father to slaughter his own flesh and blood! What cruelty! What a disgrace! Besides, the nonbeliever would wonder: ” what moral teachings can one derive from such an appalling tale?” Read more »

World War II – the most destructive war in human history- produced a generation so dejected by the horrendous Nazi barbarity that it lost hope in the intrinsic goodness of man and was prone to believe that God, because He had abandoned humankind to the gruesome fate of concentration camps and gas chambers, was not entitled to existence anymore. With the latest Indian-ocean tsunami that registered a death toll of a staggering 350.000 (but a trifle in comparison with the 60 million souls reaped by World War II) and damages beyond imagination, history, some claim, has repeated itself and the feeling of dejection and bitterness concomitant with World War II is prevalent again amongst a large portion of Asian population. Some intellectuals have raised the issue that so much damage is incompatible with the concept of a benevolent God.
Underlying this attitude is the assumption that the world should be free from evil (1) and that, because it is not, the concept of God’s benevolence is incongruous.
But is a perfect world really what we need? And is rampant evil irreconcilable with Allah’s (2) benevolence? My answer to both questions is no:
A world free from poverty, ignorance, crime, war and disease; a world free from failure, despair and hatred is meaningless and unbearable; meaningless because one would not experience any sense of growth or improvement, because one would not feel the need to rest and relax, because life would be tasteless and monotonous; unbearable because one would not be able to grasp the meaning of love in the absence of hate, the serenity of peace in the absence of trouble, the warmth of friendliness in the absence of hostility, the mercy of hope in the absence of despair, the gratification of health in the absence of sickness, the elevation of purity in the absence of impurity. In a word, it is only when the well is dry that we do know the worth of water.
In consequence, evil plays a decisive role: it substantiates and enhances good, reinforcing, thereby, our desire to promote it. Similarly, good puts in sharp relief the ugliness of evil, urging us, thereby, to overcome it. The balance struck by the coexistence of good and evil is what makes our world a place worth living in. Indeed, an utterly good world is intolerable just as an utterly evil one is! That happy balance Read more »

Hajj is a unique experience. It is a trip unlike any other trip: it is physical and spiritual, horizontal and vertical; Hajj is a journey through different places but it is, first and foremost, a journey in the meandering twists and turns of the spirit.

Hajj starts on 8 Dhul Hajja and ends on 12 or 13. All the rituals are performed in Mecca and its neighbouring suburbs which lie within a radius of twenty kilometers or so. In such small space and brief time waves of men and women- around three million pilgrims- follow the same route: Mecca, Mina, Arafat, Muzdalifa, Mina again, and back to Mecca again, causing one of the largest concentration of people in the world, if not the largest. This circular back-and-forth trip starting from Mecca and ending in Mecca is comparable to a race where the contestants’ objective is not so much to win as to participate. Read more »

The ongoing cartoon crisis is symptomatic of a profound estrangement between Western and Islamic cultures the causes of which have to be addressed if one wants to stop the escalation and prevent future antagonism. In my opinion, the present crisis has revealed once again that the West has fallen short of the ideals it boasts and proclaims so brazenly, namely tolerance, understanding and secular neutrality. This discrepancy between ideals and reality manifests itself in three major flaws: basing judgment on profound ignorance, showing duplicity towards the Muslims and applying wrong criteria to judge them.
As far as judging is concerned, one ought to normally avoid it as much as possible, but if one is forced to, one should make sure – all the more as Westerners claim to be civilized- that one knows well enough the thing or person to be judged. And the truth of the matter is that Westerners in general are completely ignorant of Islam. Despite that ignorance or because of it, they share a common ancestral belief that Islam is crude, violent and backward, hence the rise of Islamophobia in the West and the repeated blasphemous attacks on the Qur’an, the prophet and Islam. The question is, where does this belief originate from? Does it build on an investigation of Islam from within? From a direct contact with Islamic sources, namely the Qur’an and Sunnah (the prophetic Tradition)? Of course not!
It originates from two main sources: a deeply ingrained hatred of Islam handed down from one generation to the other ever since the very first clash between Islam and Christendom and permanently maintained and rekindled through education, literature and the media. As a matter of fact, the present slanderous cartoons of the Prophet of Islam shamelessly reverberate the slanders of the early Christians and the crusaders, Read more »

Fasting during Ramadan – abstaining from food, drink and sexual relations from dawn to sunset for one lunar month – is a school for moral uprightness, spiritual love and transcendence, as well as social solidarity. It is also an act of self-restraint and self-empowerment.
     Fasting during Ramadan strengthens sincerity and honesty and guards Muslims from pretense and ostentation:  anyone can pretend to fast while enjoying food and drink in private. When a Muslim fasts – he/she affirms that Allah is dearer to him than the dearest necessities of life: food, drink and sex! The extreme hunger and thirst he/she may experience are a measure of his sincere love of God.  Indeed, the fasting person seeks the pleasure of His Lord and his heart addresses Him saying:” Oh my Lord, I have given up the most precious things in my life for your sake, so accept me and grant me Paradise and forgiveness.” Read more »

“…if Islam means surrendering to God, then we all live and die as Muslims.”

Goethe

Every cell, every atom in the universe bespeaks the marvel of creation, celebrates the praise of Allah and the grandeur of His craftsmanship: The birds in the sky, the beasts on the land, the fish in the seas, the stars and planets, forests and deserts, mountains and valleys, all bow down in worship and adoration to Allah, their Lord and Cherisher and humbly submit to His will. Hence their being all Muslims.
Believers and atheists, monotheists and polytheists, the benevolent and the malevolent, the black and the white, the blind and the sighted, the deaf and the hearing, the dumb and the speaking, the rich and the poor, the oppressed and the oppressors, the learned and the ignorant all bow down in worship and adoration to Allah, their Lord and Cherisher and humbly submit to His will. Hence their being all Muslims. Read more »

Salaah is an act of worship with a conspicuous meaning and a latent meaning. Consisting of a verbal side (phrases and sentences) and a non verbal side (postures and gestures), the conspicuous meaning or outward aspect of salaah is observable and entitles the observer to say that an act of worship is being performed regardless of whether it is duly performed or not. As for the latent meaning- the essence and core of salaah- it can be captured only through perceiving the symbiotic relationship between the non-verbal and the verbal(1), and their bearing on the ultimate purpose of Salaah: establishing a connection between human beings and their Creator.
     Now, let’s consider the non-verbal and the verbal and attempt to trace the fine line uniting them: Read more »