From the marketing blurb:

This six part factual series explores some of the many facets of the British Muslim community. Produced in a range of styles from observational, current affairs and historical, the programmes are a timely look at the way Islam is being practised and perceived in Britain. Available immediately for international distribution.

Contact Details:
Executive Director Navid Akhtar
Email: navid@gazellemedia.co.uk
info@gazellemedia.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 208 829 8930

I was lucky enough to receive a review copy of the new book Prayers of Occasions which is compiled and translated by Oxford based Talal al-Azem who is otherwise a DPhil candidate at Oxford University and studied Islamic Jurisprudence in Damascus. Ordinarily, I don’t review books as it is not something that I find easy to do, however, I felt compelled to write a short “review” for Prayers of Occasions as it is a wonderful little book that I think everyone should have.

Upon receiving the book through the post, I was immediately struck by its simple elegance and beauty. I am a stickler when it comes to books and their physical production, I find that a good book and the reading experience is exponentially enhanced by the production quality such as its typesetting, printing, binding, paper and other aesthetic and functional embellishments. A quick flick through the book did not leave me disappointed, it really is a thing of beauty, joy to behold and a pleasure to read.

In his forward, Sheikh Nuh Keller tells us that “occasions” have been sent to remind us of the greatest realities of our existence and ultimately it is our journey to our Lord, whoever turns to his Lord upon such occasions will find un-looked for help, openings and one success after another and so the book sets out for the reader the means by which this is possible.

The book, lists various “prayers” which are additional [to the mandatory five daily ones] prayers of devotional worship (salah) offered at various times and on various occasions (hence the title of the book) and for specific purposes, as opposed to supplications (duas). The book wonderfully brings together in one concise handbook such prayers and makes them very accessible to ordinary Muslims seeking to enhance their devotions and their attachment to their Creator. In these modern times, it is difficult enough to offer and stumble through the 5 mandatory daily prayers and many of us get by on the bare minimum when what we should be doing is taking a time-out and topping up our account with our Creator with additional voluntary acts of worship. This book identifies such prayers and details them succinctly, offering brief but meaningful explanations as to why and what the prayers are for. Where needed, the book lists the Arabic text, standard transliteration and translation of the prayer and in the marginalia offers more serious students references to other works for more detail. Whilst the book is largely based on the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, the prayers contained therein are found in all the other schools thereby making this handbook indispensable and a must for every Muslim. Prayers of Occasions should be read, studied and acted upon, insha’Allah.

The last prayer the book lists is “A Prayer to Stave off Hypocrisy” which is an apt reminder upon completing the book to have one’s intention clear as to why such additional acts of voluntary devotions are offered.

The book is hard back 96 pages long, published by Oxford Traditional Knowledge Foundation, the book is in a small handbook size which is not quite pocket sized but small enough to carry around in one’s bag and so can be studied “on the go”.

ISBN:0956455808
Price: £12.00

Prayers of Occasions: A Handbook of Muslim Salah

He says:

“The science of astronomy states that the speed of planet Mars has been decreasing in its course toward the eastern direction in the past few weeks”

No, Mars has not been slowing down, the speed of its orbit hasn’t changed, it’s just a quirk of geometry that it seems that way relative to the Earth.

Quite clearly this hack doesn’t understand the phenomenon in question, namely the retrograde motion of Mars. He proudly states:

“Then in the months of August and September… Mars changed its course in the opposite direction to the West- and that until the end of September which means the sun will rise now from the west on Mars!!”

No! Mars has not changed direction, it is still going the same way in its own orbit around the Sun, even on Mars the Sun rises and sets as it has always done, he does go on to say

“And this weird phenomena of the opposite movement is called “Retrograde Motion”

but completely fails to understand what this means. Here a nice animation that will demonstrate Retrograde Motion.

You’ll see from the animation that it is an illusion, nothing has changed.

He also says:

“Most scientist state that all the planets will go through the same once at least and our planet Earth is one of them. Planet Earth will move in the opposite direction some day and the sun will rise from the west!!”

Really? And which scientists would that be? If the Earth were to either spin in the opposite direction or change it’s orbit to be in the opposite direction, then way before even any of that comes close life on Earth would have come to an end.

He ends with:

“This piece of news is very important as it brings with it a great sign of warning and remembrance of the coming of a new WORLD”

It would be important if it was accurate and if you bothered to check with a science teacher at your local primary school then you would have written a piece of news.

Now, he is right that there is a hadith about the Sun rising from the West. The hadith, more than likely, is alluding to something else perhaps, or some strange inexplicable phenomenon. What happens on Mars relatively to us viewing from Earth is not relevant to the hadith.

The point I am making here is that we should not take third party sources that seemingly quote a credible source (NASA) as fact when the facts of the citation have not been established and then link them to prophecy or Qur’anic verses. Too many times I have seen such things being circulated only for the facts to be quite different and then Muslims end up looking stupid.

Again, I am not surprised that this is in a Pakistani Newspaper, I have read and seen many idiotic things in them by lazy hacks who just aren’t doing their jobs and writing about real issues.

Here’s the article:

Signs of the Day of Judgement: NASA confirms possibility of sun rising from the West

ARTICLE (April 09 2010): The science of astronomy states that the speed of planet Mars has been decreasing in its course toward the eastern direction in the past few weeks to the level we notice the “waver” between the east and the west and on Wednesday the 30th of July the planet movement stopped going toward the eastern direction.

Then in the months of August and September… Mars changed its course in the opposite direction to the West- and that until the end of September which means the sun will rise now from the west on Mars!! And this weird phenomena of the opposite movement is called “Retrograde Motion” Most scientist state that all the planets will go through the same once at least and our planet Earth is one of them. Planet Earth will move in the opposite direction some day and the sun will rise from the west!!

This might occur soon and we are unaware! The rise of the sun from the west is mentioned in the hadith and this is the major sign of the day of judgement, most if not all, the minor signs have occurred. Wake up. Our beloved messenger Mohamed (Peace Be Upon Him) said: “One of the signs of the hour the sun will rise from the west, where no longer tauba (forgiveness) will be granted”!!

And the strange thing most of our Shariah scholars mentioned that the rise of the sun from the west occurs only once on that day the sun will rise from the west then again from the east and continues until Allah wishes and this is similar to what is happening to Mars it stops, then it changes its course of direction for a short period of time then returns to way once it was.

And Abdullah Bin Amro (R.A.) said: (I memorised from the messenger (SAW) a hadith I will never forget I heard the messenger of Allah (SAW) say: The first aya to come the rise of the sun from the west) [Ahmad]. And the messenger SAW “Allah places HIS hand at night to forgive his morning sinners, and places in the morning to forgive his night sinners until the sun rises from the west” [Muslim].

This piece of news is very important as it brings with it a great sign of warning and remembrance of the coming of a new WORLD – the world of he Hereafter When we show this hadith that was told 1400 years ago about this miracle..you will see InshaALLAH, a lot will revert to right path…And the Muslims if they see this phenomena happening in Mars who knows maybe it would bring them closer to our CREATOR. May Allah keep all of us in the right path and provide us with success in this world as well as in the hereafter.

The Source for this was a Pakistani Newspaper called The Business Recorder.

What we all know is that the EDL is largely made up of football hooligan thugs who can’t ply their trade at football grounds and have to find alternative sources of entertainment and so “protesting” on a Daily Mail driven agenda seems the easiest thing to do. The EDL are so repugnant that even everyone’s favourite hate-monger Nasty Nick Griffin spoke out against them as being a Zionist backed! Now, I don’t know about you but I just can’t tell the difference between what the EDL stand for and what the BNP stand for?

Here’s a video of the EDL “protest” in Birmingham, you can see from this video that they are extreme far right neo-Nazis, racist to the core, pig ignorant of the issues, unintelligent knuckle draggers.

After watching this video, I can’t imagine anyone with any decency or intelligence would support such a vile bunch of thugs and most decent people of any race would be repulsed by them.

Please note, if you are not from Aylesbury and you intend to come to Aylesbury to counter-demonstrate then the advice from the Aylesbury Muslim community is DO NOT COME! As a community we have decided that we will not be counter-demonstrating, we will allow them to come, spew their bile and leave. We do not want people to be drawn into provocation and violence, which is exactly what these bigots want… they say “Muslims are violent”, they then stir up trouble, it all kicks off and then they say “we came for a peaceful protest and look we told you these moozlims were violent”, what people don’t realise is that some of the EDL will join the counter demonstration and stir things up as agent provocateurs to get a reaction.  Stay at home or go take your family out for the day, DO NOT COME TO AYLESBURY. Please, please, get the word out to Luton, High Wycombe and other areas that surround Aylesbury that WE DO NOT want any outsiders, we want this to be a big anti-climax for the knuckle-draggers. Let us as Muslims, take the Prophetic high ground and conduct ourselves with dignity and honour. This is not to say that we are being cowardly, there is no benefit in counter-demonstrating and the best thing would be to ignore it all, let the dogs have their day. I just hope it all passes without serious incident.

RETHINKING ISLAMIC REFORM

WHEN: 26 May 2010. Doors Open: 5:30 pm | Last Entry: 6:00 pm
WHERE: Sheldonian Theatre and Divinity School
SPEAKERS: Hamza Yusuf, Tariq Ramadan

www.rethinkingislamicreform.co.uk

An Oxford University Islamic Society exclusive ground-breaking conference with Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and Professor Tariq Ramadan.

The 26th of May will mark a defining moment in Western Muslim history, as the two foremost Muslim scholars will share an audience of politicians, policy makers, scholars, theologians, journalists, media representatives and a host of other figures who have an interest and influence in the highly topical field of Islamic Reform. The event will be followed by an attendance-by-invite-only networking event in the breathtaking Divinity School, the oldest teaching room in Oxford. Join us in this exclusive gathering in the Sheldonian Theatre, and be part of this historic gathering of thoughts and minds in the world’s foremost centre of knowledge and academic excellence.

The conference seeks to address: What is reform? What is legitimate reform? What are its spheres and remits? Why have reform movements been met with distrust and trepidation by the Muslim grass-roots? What roles, if any, should governments play in Islamic reform? And what are the challenges they face?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf will be flying into Oxford exclusively for this conference, and thus it will be his only engagement in the UK. For more details on the event, the speakers and the venues, please visit: www.rethinkingislamicreform.co.uk

The Mantle Adorned is a completely new translation of the Burda (‘Mantle Poem’) of Imam Sharaf al-Din al-Busiri (d.1297). Abdal Hakim Murad has consulted the classical commentaries to produce this clear and careful English version.

Abdal Hakim Murad has added to each verse a further verse of poetry by another poet, which expresses a similar sentiment of love for the Blessed Prophet. The book therefore serves as the best collection currently available in English of poems in praise of the Seal of the Messengers, may Allah bless him and give him peace. Poets represented include Rumi, Attar, Ibn Hazm, Nanotvi, Yahya Parkinson, Rilke, and many more.

For further details see http://www.mantleadorned.com

[amazonify]1872038158:middle[/amazonify]

The van and the man from Omlet turned up at about 3pm and took about 45 mins to set-up everything up.

Here is what it looks like on our garden:

The Eglu Go

Our Chickens

We’ll be moving them off the lawn to a side area in the next couple of days. We are not allowed to let them out for 5 days so they know to come home to roost otherwise they wander off and don’t come back.

[Image from omlet.co.uk]

We’ve been thinking about having some egg laying chickens for a while now and decided to take the plunge. The Omlet Eglu range seems easy to maintain and look after and we’ll get on average 18-20 fresh eggs per week from organic, free range chickens. Chicken droppings will also be a great addition for our composter!

The cost was £295 for the Eglu and run, £11 each for the chickens (£33) and a couple of bags of chicken feed for £40.

Omlet deliver, set up and give you a quick tutorial on keeping chickens as part of their service.

Will report again once we receive the order.

Daniel Streich

Anyway, back to the story at hand, Illume Magazine’s Jason Hamza van Boom is presenting a more rigorously established account of the MP’s conversion which you can read here: Swiss Politician’s Conversion Sparks Rumors, his original piece was publised in Tikkun Magazine Online.

The question has to be asked is why are some Muslim prone to exaggerate and in some cases make up stories about conversions (Neil Armstrong anyone?)?

Praise belongs to God, The all Knowing, the Giver, the Generous, may the blessings and peace of God be upon the best of those who gave thanks for God’s gift and gave praise, the one who gave the gifts of God their due, our master Mohammad, who was sent as a mercy to creation and a guide, and upon his family and all his companions.

By the success only God gives and by His help, the new website of Habib Ali Aljifri has been launched in its new format, including new parts, and additions. Enjoy!