A traditionally trained Islamic scholar doing a PhD:
"I had slightly higher expectations from [western academia], but the reality was so different from my expectations, they didn't even deserve the strenuous training I had to endure"
You spent years studying and sitting with scholars and learning from them, only for you to say 'صلوسلم' whenever you mention the Messenger of God ﷺ?
What a waste of time.
Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi's call from 2011 on an interview with Sh Yusuf al-Qaradawi (rh) re: the Syrian Revolution.
He discusses the sharʿī obligation of protests and removal of an oppressive ruler, and that is not khurūj, from various classical sources.
More than this, we need our own Philosophy of History & metanarrative
A framework to understand the past (&future) grounded in our principles & that fits into our eschatological views
Ahmed Keeler's Mizan Thesis in Rethinking Islam and the West is a great step in this direction
After hearing audio of someone misusing recitation of the Qur'an for profane purposes, I do tawbah though listening to Sh Husayn Khattab's recitation - the Shaykh of the Qurrā' of Sham - one of my favourites.
This should be the standard to aspire to, before any melody.
On the dua discourse:
Not every act of dua will bring you closer to Allah, Imam al-Shadhili said:
"Let not your aspiration in your dua be the joy of the fulfillment of your wants, lest you be veiled from your Lord. Rather, let your aspiration be the communion with your Master."
"[M]en gifted with spiritual intuition see that the Majesty of the Truth, Most Glorious and Exalted, reveals Himself at every breath in a fresh revelation, and that He never repeats the same revelation;
3 mins in to YQ on Shah Wali Ullah and he kept on saying al-Kurani instead of al-Kūrānī (al-Gūrānī) - like someone who only learnt from reading English transliteration
and almost everything he said about Shah Wali Ullah's Persian Qur'an translation is flat out false
Train wreck
"A soul that thinks not to meet suffering in love,
Offering itself to passion thus, is rebuffed.
No spirit given over to repose ever won affection;
Loyalty escapes the spirit loving.
Ease-how remote it lies from the life of a lover!
For Eden’s Garden is set about with dreads."
The Hanafi scholar Zayn al-Dīn Qāsim ibn Qutlūbughā wrote an important work entitled
«Man yakfur wa lā yashʿur»
"One who commits kufr without realising"
In it he discusses various words and statements that could lead to kufr, teaching people to be careful about what they say.
يا رسول الله مدد مدد
سيدي الرفاعي مدد مدد
سيدي الجيلاني مدد مدد
سيدي البدوي مدد مدد
سيدي الدسوقي مدد مدد
سيدي الشاذلي مدد مدد
يا ابن العرب مدد مدد
سيدي الحكيم مدد مدد
يا رسول الله!
Some of the young people on here with interests in tasawwuf, metaphysics, and the like should refrain from using the names of various classical awliya and concepts in memes and jokes
It takes away from the reverence that should accompany mentioning such lofty figures
@Emxnullah
This letter apparently from an Algerian soldier to his father during WW1 on the Allied lines continues to haunt me.
Book: The Unknown Fallen, a non-Muslim man gathered as much as he could find on the Muslim Allied contribution in WW1 and produced a fascinating coffee table book
"Were a rose to be placed upon her cheek,
A difference between the two all would in vain seek
Tell the one who her beauty sways
to recite, for her, the Chapter of Praise.*"
- Ibn Rashīq al-Qayrawānī (d. 456/1064)
The light of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was the first creation. Everything else was created from his light, and so the meaning of his name pervades all things:
{وَإِن مِّن شَیۡءٍ إِلَّا یُسَبِّحُ بِحَمۡدِهِ}
"There is not a thing but hymneth His praise"
Ploughed through Prof A.C.S. Peacock's latest book, "Islam, Literature, and Society in Mongol Anatolia" over the past few days
An amazing study, breaking new ground&showing the importance of Ilkhanid rule in Anatolia's integration into intellectual networks of the Islamic world->
In Spring 2019, I had some philosophical issues that vexed me. It came to my mind that they might be related to the topic of Nafs al-Amr, but the literature was beyond my ability to uderstand
By the end of the year I was blessed to meet Sh Hasan and have my questions answered
Things As They Are, in PDF format
I wrote this book over the period 2014-2020. When I was commissioned to write it, I had just turned 27.
Watch this space for a revised and expanded second edition / quasi-sequel ! (Although I do have three other books
@Asim_TAA
@D1mashqi
@theogeopolitics
lol
Losing al-Andalus was definitely a greater loss from a political, intellectual, and cultural perspective.
The Mongols were quickly integrated into the Islamic political environment and many of the major ulema, esp in the 'aqliyyat, worked under Mongol facilitated patronage
Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Hindī's (d. 1315) was known to have extremely poor handwriting, but was also a very lighthearted man.
He said that he went to the book market one day and found books with handwriting far worse than his. He bought them so he could prove... /1
"Layla has been given virtue over other people,
Just as Laylat al-Qadr has been given virtue over a thousand months!"
لقد فُضّلَت ليلى على الناس مثل ما ∷ على ألف شهر فُضّلَت ليلة القدر
- Qays b. al-Mulawwah (Majnun Layla)
Some of the "students of knowledge" and "shuyukh" on this app are behaving as if it's not Ramadan
You can give your hot takes a rest this month or at least word them in a way that invites fewer comments and arguments
شَدَدتُ رِحالِي وَامتَدَحتُ مُحَمَّدًا
"I began my journey and praised Muhammad ﷺ"
My translation of a poem by Sh. Dhākir 'Awda al-Ḥanafī, may Allah preserve him.
In 19thC Morocco, Sh Muhammad b. Abd al-Kabīr al-Kattāni forbade his murīds from drinking tea because imports of sugar and tea came from the French & were seen as part of European economic colonisation
Plenty of good examples from our history, we don't need to listen to this guy
This so-called scholar’s eagerness to defend zionists with the comment “we have a deal, they’re paying us, and you’re ruining that deal” is no joke. We know boycotting is haram according to the ahl al-zionist wa’l government dear don’t worry.
"May my heart be sacrificed for a beloved worthy of all love,
Residing in Ṭaybah, alive and fresh in the grave.
[...]
Yes, Moroccan in origin I am, born in Syria,
Yet in passionate love, my heart is Medinan."
- Qalbī fī al-hawā Madaniyyu, by Sayyid Sh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi
On the Isrā and Miʿrāj:
According to some classical authorities, the Prophet ﷺ is referred to as as-samīʿ al-baṣīr in Sūrah al-Isrāʾ 17:1
“...to the Further Mosque the precincts of which We have blessed, that We might show him of Our signs! Lo! He is the hearer, the seer."
It is narrated that person will be lashed in his grave, questioning it until the last strike. Then his grave is filled with fire. After, he asks, "Why did you lash me?" The Angels say, "You prayed without purification, and you passed by an oppressed person without helping"
Friends in/around Oxford:
At the end of May I'll be delivering a seminar on Mongol-Islamic intellectual history for the Islamicate Intellectual History series, entitled "Revisiting Rashid al-Din al-Hamadhani's Theological Works"
30th May, 3-4pm
Pembroke College, Oxford
Treatise on Explaining the Ascension
The 10th treatise from Ilkhanid vizier Rashīd al-Dīn al-Hamadhānī's (d. 1318)Kitāb al-Tawḍīḥāt
Miʿrāj works were popular throughout Islamic history. al-Qushayrī's Kitāb al-Miʿrāj was a source for an Ilkhanid Miʿrājnāma written in 1286 [1/2]
Translation of the Munfarijah (Relief-Poem) of al-Ghazali
Alhamdulillah, I've completed the translation and uploaded it to my site
May Allah grant comfort to us all and support our brethren in Palestine
نصرة وتفريجا لنا ولإخواننا في غزة العزة وفلسطين
Finally got to finishing my translation of the Munfarijah (Relief Poem) attributed to Imam al-Ghazali. Almost done and will share it soon بإذن الله تعالى
نصرة وتفريجا لنا ولإخواننا في غزة العزة وفلسطين
A rendition of it from Damascus, 10 years ago:
attempting to revive Islamic intellectual traditions without a strong focus on riyadah and mujahadah is a symptom of modern compartmentalisation of knowledge and may do more harm than good
+ a warning to those with interests in philosophy but barely have fard ‘ayn
"Since she was created from part of him, he yearns to be completed through the return of the part to him, and she yearns to reunite with the whole. This is the mercy that The Real has placed between them. As Eve's coming from him and separation also in a way resembles birth...
"The rectification of the Ummah is in accordance with its devotion to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and the corruption of this Ummah is in accordance with its turning away from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ"
[al-Shaykh al-Akbar Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn Arabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyah]
Soon we will have to publish "The Collected Essays of Shaykh Hasan Spiker".
Small size, hardback, good quality binding, like they used to do back in to beginning of the 20th century.
ON WHY NON-MUSLIMS CANNOT SEE ISLAM
Hasan Spiker
25/2/2024
Those who baulk at the rigour and majesty, the jalāl that sometimes radiates from the Muslim, deeming this antithetical to the pacifist, meek conceptions of spiritual realization that are part of the broad Christian
Slightly late to announce here, but, alhamdulillah, after completing my MPhil back in August, I'm starting my PhD at Cambridge (Pembroke). Again in Mongol/Ilkhanid Islamic history.
I'll be continuing with my focus on Ilkhanid Islamic intellectual history
lool how can the security guards at the entrance of one of the universities here in Istanbul pull up chuff chuff pir after I told them I was from Pakistan.
LOL "his tasawwuf was akhlāqī, tarbawī, from the qalb. He didn't like much of the mysticsm that [...] would be against mainstream Islam."
Try reading 30 pages into Hujjat Allah al-Balighah and say that again
وَاتَزَّت الأرضُ إجلالاً لِمَولِدِهِ ∷شَبِيهَةً بِعَرُوسٍ هَزَّها الطّربُ
wa'htazzat al-arḍu ijlālan li-mawlidihi ∷ shabīhatan bi-'arūsin hazzahā aṭ-ṭarabu
The Earth trembled due to the tremendous magnificence of his birth (ﷺ),
Like a wedding party, stirred by excitement!
Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī and buddies at the Maragheh observatory
Maraghah became a major intellectual centre & site of philisophical activity in the 13thC Islamic world, attracting scholars from around the world
One such figure was Kamāl al-Dīn Aflāṭūn al-Hindi -Plato the Indian
The doctor placed his hand on my chest,
Said he, 'I have no cure for the lovestruck!'
What can cool the burning heat,
Of my insides - what can at all?
- Sultan al-ʿAshiqin ʿUmar Ibn al-Farid (d. 1234)
that is to say, He never reveals Himself during two consecutive moments under the guise of the same phenomena and modes, but every moment presents fresh phenomena and modes."
- Mullā ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī, al-Lawāʾiḥ
"In the 18th and 19th centuries the science of hadith was not studied in the Arab world. I know it's shocking, but it's factually correct, and I speak as somebody who knows [...] I know the history of the sciences of hadith."
hahaha, no.
A Principle:
{وَإِذَا مَرُّوا بِاللَّغْوِ مَرُّوا كِرَامًا}
"When they pass by vain discourse, pass by it with dignity."
I would say I find it odd that "masculinity" bros are the least able to adhere to it, but I'm not surprised tbh.
Sidi Muhammad Wahbi from Rabat singing the recent takhmīs of al-Ghawth Abū Madyan's poem, "It is forbidden for my heart to love other than you" by Sayyiduna Sh. Muhammad al-Yaqoubi.
[A takhmīs is a three hemstich addition to an original couplet]
I've had my favorite developing-world cuisines in America and the country of origin. The diaspora version is usually better.
The reason is simple: poverty leads to lower standards, worse food quality, worse refrigeration, less cleanliness, etc.
Iranian food is an exception. I
Hijrah bros, especially the Turkey types (Ottoman fanboys) need to understand that this is the average Islam you will encounter there.
Any random diaspora community is *way* more religious than people back home, evidenced by the many conflicts diaspora kids have with their
After saying that scholars should not conceal the truth, Sh Muhammad b. Jaʿfar al-Kattani says:
"The sword of the scholar-sage is his tongue, and his spear with which strikes [...] in times of bidʿah if he is silent despite being capable, then upon him is the curse of God."
When they were debating, Ibn Taymiyyah would rush through issues, and jump from one thing to another, "as was his habit"
Because of this, Ṣafī al-Dīn said to him:
"I see you are like a small bird, every time I am about to catch you in one place, you fly away to another!"
"Entire social networks [...] were destroyed along with the buildings. There had never been a destruction committed by a society on itself to compare with it. The thousand-year contemplative heart of Christianity in England was ripped out."
If you ever feel as though the sin you committed is too great, here is a map of all the monasteries King Henry VIII of England dissolved when he left the Catholic Church.
The Shifā of al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ. Its reading is a means to ask Allah for Him to forgive us for our weakness and inability to act, and for Him to grant healing, relief and support for all of our brothers and sisters in Palestine.
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ is our source of peace
@Asim_TAA
@D1mashqi
@theogeopolitics
Baghdad's destruction wasn't nearly as bad as it is made out to be, the Mongol siege occurs after a decade which saw famine, plague, earthquake, flood, and administrative mismanagement - a shadow of its former self by the time the Hulegu arrived. Some quarters were also spared
the false-sufi's claim that the today's age is one where the scholars need to go "underground" to preserve traditional Islam is an uneducated essentialisng of very specific cases 20thC sufi/traditional scholarly communities
@Asim_TAA
@D1mashqi
@theogeopolitics
some scholars working in Azerbaijan ( Ilkhanid administrative centre) btwn 656-750AH, off the top of my head
Tusi
Katibi
Shirazi
Hilli
Qunawi
Baydawi
Shams al-Isfahani
Jarabardi
Khatib Tabrizi
al-Ubaydi
Badr al-Tustari
Iji
Tibi
Jandi
Kashani
al-Qaysari
& many more
"Paradise is an abode of seriousness and reality. There is no speech there without benefit. Because the souls have been freed from all defects, only realities and intellectual and moral ascension delights them. They do not utter except that which increases the souls in purity."
The foundation of the souls' familiarity is the pre-eternal mutual recognition in ʿālam al-ghayb.
Every form in ʿālam al-shahādah is a likeness of a spiritual essence in ʿālam al-ghayb. Realities moving there are reflected in this lower realm, as a shadow moves with its object.
لا بُدَّ لِلطَّالِبِ مِن كُنَّاشِ ∷ يَكتُبُ فِيهِ العِلمَ وَهوَ مَاشِ
Lā budda liṭ-ṭālibi min kunnāshi ∷ yaktubu fīhi l-'ilmā wahwa māshi
For the student, a notebook is a must,
In it he writes knowledge, even while walking.
Join us on Wednesday, March 20th at 6 pm PDT on YouTube for a public session of the First Command Book Club. We are blessed to host author and journalist Mustafa Akyol for a discussion on "Jews and the Qur'an" with President Hamza Yusuf.
@AkyolinEnglish
On the way to the Hejaz to perform Hajj, Burhan al-Din Sadr-i Jahan Muhammad b. Ahmad b. ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, the raʾis of the Hanafis of Bukhara, annoyed his companions so much that they changed his name from Sadr-i Jahan (leader of the world) to Sadr-i Jahannum (leader of hell).
In a "controversial" lines, since "signs" is general and could include the Qur'an, God's Speech,
Imam al-Zarkashī explains simply that "signs" is ʿāmm intended to be khāṣṣ, as in miracles other than the Qur'an. The specifier (mukhaṣṣiṣ) is the intellect
The intellect...
The famous nasheed Burda Al Qaseeda of Busiri "Mawla Ya Salli wasallim daiman abada...."
Is filled with kufr , shirk and atheism.
Stay away from it.
These statement of kufr and shirk are recited pretty much all over Muslim lands and we wonder why Allah is not aiding us.
On Ibn 'Abd al-Hadi's Reading Sessions:
"In the year 897/1492, a Damascene scholar sat down in his garden to read through his considerable library. He neither did so silently nor alone, rather he read the books aloud with members of his family."
@Asim_TAA
@D1mashqi
@theogeopolitics
As for the libraries, some books may have been destroyed, but most early sources record that many were moved to the observatory Tusi had built in Maragha, and other libraries and institutions in Baghdad were restored after the conquest by the Juwayni brothers (Persian ministers)
"They knew that if that inner struggle does not translate into any tangible defiance of worldly evil, then it is hypocritical."
Great piece on sufis and their resistance to colonialism.
If I get the time maybe I'll write something about the Kattanī family too, insha'Allah.
Imam al-Bukhārī and Solitary Reports:
al-Bukhārī says at the beginning of this section: "Chapter on the permissibility of Akhbār al-Āḥād from trustworty narrators re. adhān, prayer, fasting, farā'iḍ and aḥkām."
Why did he specify this with aḥkām?
Prophetic Guidance in Poem Form
One thing I'd love to see is short hadith translated into poetry. For example, this verse from English poet Robert Herrick (d. 1674) almost fits the hadith:
التائب من الذنب كمن لا ذنب له
"The one who repents from sin is like one who has no sin."
In 504/1110-11, a group of scholars, merchants, and Hāshimī Sharīf protested in Baghdad against Muslim inaction to the Crusader injustices. They prevented the Friday prayer from being held, ejected the khaṭīb &smashed the pulpit
Walking out to pray in another mosque seems fair
Worshippers in Ramallah, Occupied West Bank hasten to leave the Masjid when they see that the Khateeb is an advisor of Mahmoud Abbas.
The people of the West Bank are with the resistance, they’re not with lazy politicians.
أبرقٌ بدا من جانب الغور لامعُ ∷ أمِ ارْتفعتْ عن وجه ليلى البراقعُ
"Did lighting flash bright near the cave,
Or were the veils lifted from the face of Laylā?"
Dīwān al-Shaykh Abī al-Ḥasan al-Shādhilī, Berlin, Wetzstein II 195
18th century dīwān attributed to Imām Abū al-Ḥasan al-Shādhilī (رضي الله عنه)
The poems are not actually the Imām's - many if them are actuall al-Shushtarī's, such as طاب نقلي وشرابي & سر سري يلوح في ��مري
في هواكم رمضان عمره
ينقضي بين إِحياء وطي
"In your love, his entire life is like Ramaḍān,
Spent between giving life to the night and abstention"
- Ibn al-Fāriḍ (d. 1234)
The lover, occupied with the flood of Divine Secrets upon his heart, abstains from the vision of any other
Another individual who travelled from afar to Mongol held Tabriz for its intellectual community was ʿAlam al-Dīn Sulaym al-Multānī (from Multan, Pakistan)
He came to the court of the vizier Rashīd al-Dīn al-Hamadhānī (d. 1318) to ask him: Which part of the body is formed first?
al-Ghazali's turn to tasawwuf in Mishkat al-Anwar is affirmed by his student Radi al-Din al-Iraqi, who synthesises various works of the Hujja.
Here the editor notes the concordance of al-Ghazali's categorisation of those veiled by God's light with al-Shaykh al-Akbar in the Fusus
وَحَبِيبِي وَجْنَتَاهُ / وَرْدَتَانِ كَالدِّهَان
My beloved's two cheeks / rosy, like red hide
بَينَ سَمعِي وَفُؤَادِي / بَرزَخٌ لا يَبغِيان
Between my ears and my heart / lies a barrier they do not cross
- Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (d. 1731)
Sayyidī al-Shaykh Muhammad Abu'l-Huda al-Yaqoubi with Sh. Muḥammad al-Fātiḥ al-Kittānī, the son of Sh. Muḥammad Makkī al-Kittānī
Sh. Muhammad al-Fātiḥ was the one who first placed the turban on the head of Sh. Abu'l-Huda and commanded him to wear it
رضي الله عنهما ونفعنا بهما
Attended a Miʿrāj gathering last Friday in Istanbul and heard from people who had just arrived back from helping in the earthquake region. They all had experienced some truly miraculous occurences. May Allah reward them and grant safety and security to all.
The crescent moon was especially beautiful just after sunset this evening
Braved the now mostly flooded Grantchester Meadows to stand by the river, and then notice this.
Since Ramadān readings are being posted, here’re four. The rest are PDFs, and I’m planning on covering some stuff on poetry and Tafsīr for projects and some analyses on Rūmī and other Sūfī poets. I don’t think I posted the two on top before either, but the second is interesting.
In the uni khutbah I discussed a hadith in which ignorance & love of the world are called two intoxicants which cause Muslims to neglect their social and political responsibilities. I related it by way of ishāra to the verse "Do not approach the prayer while you are intoxicated."
A Principle:
"With the corruption of the masses appears the rule of tyranny; with the corruption of the elite appear false prophets who seduce [the masses] away from religion."
- al-Ghawth Abu Madyan
«بفساد العامة تظهر ولاة الجور، وبفساد الخاصة تظهر الدجاجلة الميالون عن الدين»
Sh ʿAbd al-Qādir Naṣṣār:
"If we were to forget Gaza, then we would not be human. Concern with Gaza is [a part of] faith, and neglecting it or being distracted from it is utter loss."
لو نسينا غزة لم نكن آدميين، والاهتمام بغزة إيمان، وإهمالها والتشاغل عنها خسران.
The Divine Speech was the first thing the A'yan in the Hadrah Ilmiyyah perceived.
The first word was "Kun" consists of 3 letters which are each made of 3 letters, resulting in 9, where the digits end.
The basic form of the syllogism, too, is three statements.
ḥaḍir: a smell-feast
This has for a long time been one of my favourite Arabic words
Someone who always turns up at the mawlid or any walima only when the food is served.
"Do you not see the caged bird, oh youth? How it yearns to be free when it recalls its homeland?
With its chirping, that in its heart bursts forth, and its limbs tremble in feeling and spirit.
Such are the souls of lovers, oh youth! Desires propel them to the most sublime world!"