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When Heresiologists Turn Bad…

Heresiology, whilst necessary, is dangerous. Rebuttals of erroneous aqida (tenets of faith) positions are necessary. The danger lies in the approach, the means and manner in which such things are conducted. There is also a major danger in the heresiologists own limited reading and understanding of the the issue at hand or the person they are investigating. Such things as context and situation are disregarded. They first start with sincere intentions and apply themselves to issues that need clarifying and make rebuttals of the positions of the heretical and deviant sects and this is of immense benefit to the lay folk who are the most affected by these issues. Once clarified, the heresiologist should stop there and move on to other things. But often times what next happens is that a counter-rebuttal is made, and then a counter-counter rebuttal has to be made and the ego merri-go-round is started. And so what happens next is more ego-driven than necessity driven. YouTube is replete with angry mullahs and young hot heads, barely out of school, challenging one another in the most ungracious of ways. Once the ego has firmly rooted itself in such a discourse, what happens next is like a cancer, it becomes self-destructive. Those who have become modern-day inquisitors then turn on each other, to see who is not on the “manhaj”, who is not “Sunni” enough for their liking. No one is spared, the great ulama of the present are fair game and you see them hounding their own scholars and trying to prove that their own scholars are heretics. It is only a matter of time before they start digging the graves of their own scholars.

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Salafi Foot Jamming – updated

UPDATE 4: Mufti Abdurrahman ibn Yusuf analyses the evidence – http://www.zamzamacademy.com/2010/09/feet-to-feet-toe-to-toe/

UPDATE 3: Shaykh Hamza Yusuf explaining the “feet to feet” – the narrator for the hadith was an 8 year old boy as elucidated by Ibn Hajr al-Asqalani. See http://youtu.be/Q8AdSuKKrwY

UPDATE 2: al-Talib’s blog has an excerpt from the 3rd edition of Fiqh al-Imam [published by White Thread Press] by Mufti AbdurRahman ibn Yusuf “Feet to Feet, Toe to Toe?” which discusses the hadith that the Salafis rely on to push their position.

“Question:
Hanafis are often criticized for not touching toes in congregational prayer (by Salafis), who point to the hadith (I don’t know it off-hand). I understand that it’s not the hadith that is being questioned, but the interpretation.

This is specifically a problem for women, as we have to keep our feet close together, according to our madhab. Please send me details as I am trying to put this across to a salafi sister.”

http://attalib.blogspot.com/2008/06/feet-to-feet-toe-to-toe.html

UPDATE: The blog Dar al-Hadithhas a useful scan of evidences, for those who can understand Arabic. against joining the feet that a lot of Salafis insist on.

http://daralhadith.blogspot.com/2008/05/joining-feet.html

I was digging through some of my old emails and knew that I had an old post from the Hanbali Fiqh list when it was active. Anyway, this is something on the subject posted by Sidi Musa Furber:

Bismillahi Al-Rahmani Al-Rahim”Foot-pressing stance” During Prayer
Q
As salaamu alaykum,

Does the foot-pressing stance adopted by our Salafi brethren have sanction in the madhhab of Imam Ahmad?

Wassalam

A
wa `alaykum al-salam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu

I have not been able to find anything that explicitly says that people should pray with their feet and shoulders jammed together. The closest that I have found is that rows should be straightened using the ankles and shoulders as a guide to determining straightness, and that that rows should be tightened to remove any gaps. (See Kashshaf al-qina` (1:328), Ghayat al-muntaha (1:120))

And what is explicit regarding the feet is that they should be slightly parted. (See Kashshaf al-qina` (1:372), Nail al-Ma’arib (1:142))

Brothers and sisters who insist on jamming their foot up to their neighbors should realize that if their neighbor keeps moving their foot and they keep moving their foot to get rid of the gap, they run the risk of invalidating their prayer because of excessive needless motion. They should also bear in mind that while it is recommended to gather together the rows, it is prohibited to injure another Muslim without right (and this does happen) and it is offensive to annoy.

And Allah knows best.

wa al-salamu `alaykum
–musa

wa’as-salam

Mas’ud
www.masud.co.uk

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Sexualisation of Society

A while back, on a Facebook thread, the poster said:

“Never really thought or even realized how much haram there is in Bollywood music videos. Just as much objectification of women as most hiphop videos. It probably aint a good idea to have those videos playing in family restaurants either…My God!!!”

The poster was not an Indo-Pak but I thought that this was a good starting point for a discussion on the issue of sexualisation of society and sexualising media and entertainment.

Read more »

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