Saturday, October 25, 2014

Christianity is the the reason for European material success: Muhammad Asad

One cannot be blamed for contending that it was not a potential "superiority" of the Christian faith over other creeds which enabled the West to attain to its brilliant material achievements: for those achievements are unthinkable without the historic struggle of Europe's intellectual forces against the very principles of the Christian Church. Its present materialistic conception of life is Europe's revenge on Christian "spirituality" which had gone away from the natural truths of life.

Islam at the Crossroads By Muhammad Asad 

Political & Economic strengths of nations influence more the weaker nations

It lies in human nature that nations and civilizations which are politically and economically more virile exert a strong fascination on the weaker or less active communities, and influence them in the intellectual and social spheres without being influenced themselves. Such is the situation today with regard to the relations between the Western and the Muslim worlds.
Islam at the Crossroads by Muhammad Asad

Cultural buying and Selling and the muslims contribution

This idea of "buying" and "selling" in the cultural sense, and of the negative role of the present-day Muslim world in this respect, was later taken up and further developed by that eminent Algerian writer, the late Malik bin Nabi , who stressed the fact -first pointed out in this book -that, having lost their one-time creativity, the Muslims have not only become utterly dependent on Western goods but have also become mere "buyers" of Western technology and organizational methods as well as of Western social and political concepts, without becoming "sellers", i.e., without transmitting any positive impulses of their own to the West in return.

Muhammad Asad in his book "Islam at the Crossroad"

Friday, October 24, 2014

Kaaba’s senior keeper Al-Shaibi passes away

Kaaba’s senior keeper Al-Shaibi passes away

Last updated: Friday, October 24, 2014 2:54 PM
 
 
Sheikh Abdul Qadir Bin Taha Al-Shaibi, senior keeper of the Holy Kaaba, receives new key of Kaaba from Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, the then emir of Makkah, and Sheikh Abdurahman Al-Sudais, head of the Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques. — SG photo
 
 
HALED AL-HUMAIDI
OKAZ/SAUDI GAZETTE
 
MAKKAH — Sheikh Abdul Qadir Bin Taha Al-Shaibi, senior keeper of the Holy Kaaba, passed away on Thursday. He was 75.
 
Al-Shaibi’s body was buried in Makkah’s Al-Moalla Cemetery after offering funeral prayers at the Grand Mosque. A large number of citizens and officials of the Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques as well as his relatives attended the last rites.
 
Al-Shaibi died at King Khaled National Guard Hospital in Jeddah on Thursday morning. His death came while preparations were under way for washing of the Holy Kaaba on Nov. 8 (Muharram 15).
 
Al-Shaibi was named the senior keeper of Kaaba after the death of his paternal uncle Abdul Aziz Al-Shaibi four years ago. Last year, Sheikh Abdurahman Al-Sudais, head of the Presidency, handed the new lock and key of Kaaba to Al-Shaibi. The lock, which was made 30 years ago, was changed after authorities noticed that it was rusty.
 
Dr. Saleh Bin Taha Al-Shaibi, the oldest member of Shaibi family, will be the new keeper of Kaaba. The Shaibi family continues to honor the tradition of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) by handing down the position of keeper (sadin) of the Kaaba to its oldest member.
 
The sadin is responsible for opening and closing the Kaaba gate and washing it. When the Prophet (pbuh) entered the Kaaba after conquering Makkah, he smashed all the idols inside it, washed it, closed its gate and then called Othman Bin Talha and gave him the key saying, “These keys will remain with you until the Day of Judgment.”
 
Sheikh Abdul Qadir Al-Shaibi was the 108th successor of Othman Bin Talha. On an earlier occasion, he had said: “The keeper of the Holy Kaaba is the only one responsible for its affairs. It is a huge honor that no one can take away from us because it was bestowed upon us by the order of Almighty Allah.” — SG
Source: Saudi Gazett

Monday, October 6, 2014

Religious beliefs are communicated to man by his cultural environment

Religious belief and unbelief are very rarely a matter of argument alone. In some cases the one or the other is gained by way of intuition or, let us say, insight; but mostly it is communicated to man by his cultural environment. Think of a child who from his earliest days is systematically trained to hear perfectly rendered musical sounds. His ear grows accustomed to discern tone, rhythm and harmony; and in his later age he will be able, if not to produce and to render, at least to understand the most difficult music. But a child who during the whole of its early life never heard anything resembling music would afterwards find it hard to appreciate even its elements. It is the same with religious associations. As there possibly are some individuals to whom nature has completely denied an "ear" for music, so -possibly but not probably -there are individuals who are completely "deaf" to the voice of religion. But for the overwhelming number of normal human beings the alternative between religious belief and unbelief is decided by the atmosphere in which they are brought up. Therefore the Prophet said: "Every child is born in original purity, and it is but his parents who make him a 'Jew', a 'Christian' or a 'Zoroastrian'" (Sahih al-Bukhari)

Islam at the Crossroad
Muhammad Asad

Western Education of Muslim youth by Muhammad Asad

Western education of Muslim youth is bound to undermine their will to believe in the message of the Prophet, their will to regard themselves as representatives of the religiously-motivated civilization of Islam. There can be no doubt whatever that religious belief is rapidly losing ground among our "intelligentsia" who have absorbed Western values.

The explanation of this estrangement is not that the Western science with which they have been fed has furnished any reasonable argument against the truth of our religious teachings, but that the intellectual atmosphere of modern Western society is so intensely anti-religious that it imposes itself as a dead weight upon the religious potentialities of the young Muslim generation.

Islam at the crossroad by Muhammad Asad

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Some of the questions in Road to Mecca by Muhammad Asad

'how has it come about that уоu Muslims have lost your self confidence -that self-сопidеnсе which опсе enabled you to spread your faith, in less than а hundred years, from Arabia westward as far as the Atlantic and eastward deep into China and now surrender yourselves so easily, so weakly, to the thoughts and customs of the West '? Why can't you, whose fогеfathers illumined the world with science and art at а time when Europe lay in deep barbarism and ignorance, summon forth the courage to go back to your own progressive, radiant faith? How is it that Ataturk, that petty masquerader who denies all value to Islam, has become to уои Muslims а symbol of' "Muslim revival" ?'
Road to Mecca

Present State of Muslims by Allama Muhammad Asad in Road to Mecca

I HAD NO ILLUSIONS as to the present state of affairs in the Muslim world. Тhе four years I had spent in those countries had shown me that while Islam was still alive, perceptible in the world-view of its adherents and in their silent admission of its ethical premises, they themselves were like people paralyzed, unable to translate their beliefs into fruitful action.

Road to Mecca

Difference between Islam and Christianity: Road to Mecca by Muhammad Asad


In time, however, I came to understand where their difficulty lay. I began to perceive that in the eyes of people brought up within the orbit of Christian thought -with its stress оп the 'supernatural' allegedly inherent in every true religious·ехрепепсе -а predominantly rational approach appeared to detract from а religion's spiritual value. This attitude was Ьу по means confined to believing Christians. Because of Europe's long, almost exclusive association with Christianity, even the agnostic European had subconsciously lеагпеd to look upon аll religious experience through the lens of Christian concepts, and would regard it as 'valid' only if it was accompanied Ьу а thrill of numinous awe before things hidden and beyond intellectual comprehension. Islam did not fulfill this requirement: it insisted оп а co-ordination of the physical and spiritual aspects of life оп а perfectly natural plane. In fact, its world-view was so different from the Christians, оп which most of the West's ethical concepts were based, that to accept the validity of the опе inescapably Led to questioning the validity of the other.
Road to Mecca

Man's Greed

Man's Greed:
At all times people had known greed: but at no time before this had greed outgrown а mere eagerness to acquire things and because an obsession that blurred the sight of everything else: an irresistible craving to get, to do, to contrive more and more-more today than yesterday, and more tomorrow than today: а demon riding on the necks of men and whipping their hearts forward toward goals that tauntingly glitter in the distance but dissolve into contemptible nothingness as soon as they are reached, always holding out the promise of new goals ahead -goals still more brilliant, more tempting as long as they lie on the horizon and bound to wither into further nothingness as soon as they come within grasp: and that hunger, that insatiable hunger for ever new goals gnawing at man's soul:"Nay, if you but knew it you would see the hell you are in…"
To Ье without greed is to Ье: without fear -and that if man goes beyond fear he goes beyond' danger as well, knowing that whatever happens to him/her is but his/her share in all that is happening... '
Road to Mecca
Road to Mecca written by Muhammad Asad