Three new articles on masud.co.uk
as-salamu ‘alaykum,
Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad has sent me three new articles:
The next Contentions: Contentions 11, an essay on the Christian Churches during the Bosnian war and some reflections on hadiths of Forgiveness and Justice:
Contentions 11
by Abdal Hakim Murad7. Your greatest liability is your lie-ability.
8. No-one is more extroverted than the contemplative saint.
9. Modernity: an accelerating attempt to shovel matter into the growing hole where religion used to be.
10. The Liber Asian vs. the Manu Mission: a woman may be Arahat on Arafat.
11. Arabdom is not congenital.
12. Jesus said ?Allah?, not ?Deus.? (?Say: Allah! and leave them plunging in their confusion.?)
13. We are designed to fall to our knees.
14. Remember: you once knew the whole Qur?an. [more]
The Churches and the Bosnian War
by Abdal Hakim Murad
One of the most disturbing features of the war which devastated Bosnia between 1992 and 1995 was the widespread refusal of Western politicians, churchmen and newsmen, to acknowledge the role which religion was playing in the conflict. It was only mentioned, indeed, during periodic denunciations of the risks of Islamic extremism – a phenomenon that, when pressed, journalists working in Bosnia conceded was rather elusive. The reality, which was frequently one of militant Christian extremism, was never, to my knowledge, frankly discussed. The war was, we were told, a contest between ?ethnic factions?; and the fact that its protagonists were divided primarily by religion, and shared a race and a language, was deemed insignificant. [more]
Forgiveness and Justice: meditations on some hadiths
by Abdal Hakim Murad
(1) The Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) prayed for pardon for his people, and received the reply: “I have forgiven them all but acts of oppression, for I shall exact recompense for the one who is wronged, from his oppressor.”In the Qur’an, God is just, and requires justice; but he is also forgiving, and requires forgiveness; in fact, its references to the latter property outnumber those on justice by a ratio of approximately ten to one. Islamic theology has not always been clear how the ensuing tension is to be resolved. “My Mercy outstrips My wrath” is a well-known divine saying, but one which nonetheless is far from abolishing God?s wrath. Indeed, a righteous indignation about injustice is integral to the prophetic representation of God?s qualities, and from the earliest moments of its revelation the Qur?an links God?s expectations of His creatures to justice towards the weak. [more]
wa’as-salam
Mas’ud
www.masud.co.uk
2 thoughts on “Three new articles on masud.co.uk”
As-Salaamu ‘alaikum,
The entry on the Serbian church is fascinating. Insha Allah I intend to link it to my blog. A while ago I read several Orthodox Christian websites and one of them – orthodoxinfo.com – routinely links material from Srdja or Serge Trifkovic who is virulently anti-Muslim, and its administrator praises his books “Defeating Jihad” and “Sword of the Prophet” (sall’ Allahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) a lot. The administrator is one Patrick Barnes, and he is an apparent convert to Orthodoxy and a member of the Serbian Orthodox Church (see his bio); however, when I first read this site he said he was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad (rocor.org), set up by a Russian patriarch just before the Russian church fell under Soviet domination. I don’t know what prompted his change of church – perhaps he just moved and found a Serbian but no ROCOR church in his new neighbourhood – but articles I’ve read by a British ROCOR priest (admittedly, the priest of a small congregation in Suffolk, hardly in the upper echelons of the church) suggest that they are less hostile to us than the Serbian church is.
The remarks made by Serbian churchmen regarding the “pseudo-churches” of the west are telling, since some of our preachers are routinely accused of saying different things in English (or whatever the native language) and Arabic.
As-Salaamu ‘alaikum,
Here’s one of the articles by the ROCOR priest I mentioned, and here‘s the other (see the Q&A from 11th Sept 2005).