An excellent BBC radio documentary by Navid Akhtar on the Ka’ba in the holy city of Mecca in modern day Saudi Arabia. Must listen if you have access to BBC’s iPlayer (UK only). For those of those not able to listen to this due to geographic location, there may be a way, will publish details when I am able to. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00hxnwb/Sunday_Feature_The_Black_Cube/
Rejoice one and all, the season of the Mawlid is upon us . . . “Love of the Prophet is like the blood in the veins of the Muslims” – Muhammad Iqbal poet and philospher. Considering that we are in the Blessed Month of Rabi al-Awwal, the month in which our Beloved Prophet Muhammad was born in, I would like to share with you an essay I wrote for the CD sleeve notes on Inayet Petker’s nasheed CD called “Salutations”…
There is really no such thing as a specifically identifiable monolithic “Islamic culture”, when Islam embeds itself into a country, culture or society, the norms of that society are generally accepted with proviso that the practices do not violate a principle of the Shariah.