Hijab Unveiled

Excellent free book on the Hijab and its misconceptions by Imam Afroz Ali:

http://seekersguidance.org/blog/2012/06/unveiling-hijab-free-ebook-by-imam-afroz-ali/

Hijab ban and hearts?

Some people think the hijab is oppressive or some Muslims want to remove the hijab or have removed it. Although it is fardh (obligatory) to wear hijab, let these same people look at the hijab (veil) that covers their hearts. This veil is soo thick that it blocks the Divine Lights from penetrating the heart, and so there are many diseases in the hearts of many people.
Remove the veils of greed, arrogance, pride, ignorance and so on from your heart. Gain Islamic knowledge and become more humble and obey Allah Most High.
And these veils over hearts apply to men and women, boys and girls.
Who is more oppressed than one who is caged by her desires and ignorance, such that the person does not worship Allah swt?

Dawah to a French Woman- Sheikh Muhammed Ghazali

Call to Allah swt with wisdom 

My dear friend sent me this, on Sheikh Mohamed al-Ghazali's (different to the famous Imam Ghazali!) approach to da'wah. Enjoy:

"I did not like the way she was dressed when she entered my office. However, the look in her eyes revealed sadness and bewilderment that called for compassion and patience. She sat down and started sharing her concerns hoping to find answers with me.


I listened to her long enough. I learned that she was an Arab girl who received her education in France where she was raised. It was also clear that she barely knew Islam. I started explaining basic facts, dispelling suspicions, answering questions and refuting orientalists’ lies about Islam. I also did not forget to allude to today’s civilization and how it considers women as cheap flesh. At the end of my talk, the girl asked for a future appointment and excused herself.


Soon after, a young man – on whom qualities of Outward Islamism were apparent – came storming into my office and said violently: “How come such wicked person was admitted here?”


“The job of a physician is to accept. He doesn’t typically see healthy people, does he?” I replied.


“Of course, you advised her to wear Hijab!” he added.


I said to him “The issue is much bigger than that. There is the foundation that has to be laid. There is the Belief in Allah and the Hereafter. There is the hearing and the obeying of what was revealed in the Qur’an and the Sunnah, in addition to the pillars of worship and manners; the pillars that Islam cannot exist without …”. He interrupted me saying, “All of this does not mean we don’t order her to wear Hijab”.


“I wouldn’t like it if she came in a nun’s clothes while her heart is void of Allah. I taught her the basis that will help her to choose, on her own free will, to wear more decent clothes,” I calmly replied.


He tried to interrupt me again so I said firmly “I can’t drag Islam by its tail as you do. I lay the foundation and then start building and I usually achieve what I want with wisdom”.


Two weeks later, the girl came back. She was wearing much more decent clothes with a scarf over her head. She resumed her questions and I resumed my teaching. Then I asked “Why don’t you go to the nearest mosque to your home?” I said that but immediately I felt remorse. I remembered that mosques are closed in the face of Muslim women. The girl answered that she hated the People of Religion and that she did not like to listen to them.


“Why?” I asked.


“They are hard-hearted, and they treat us with contempt and scorn”, came her swift reply.


I don’t know why I remembered Hind (Abu-Sufyan’s wife). She was the one who chewed Hamza’s liver and fought Islam vigorously until the 8th year of Hijrah. She did not really know the Prophet. However, when she knew him and saw his lenient manners, she told him “I never wished someone on the face of this earth to be abased more than you and your family. Now, I do not wish to see someone on the face of this earth more honored than you and your family.” The Prophet’s kindness and sympathy changed the hearts of the people around him.


Now, would the da'i (caller to Allah) today learn from their Prophet? Would they learn to draw together instead of driving away, and to bring good tidings rather than to say things that repels people away from them and from Islam?"

Nafisa at-Tahira- Great Scholars of Islam

Sayyida Nafisa was born in Makkah on the 11th of Rabi`a al-Awwal, the same night that the Prophet (s) was born, in the year 145 H. Her father had been appointed governor of Madinat al-Munawwara in the year 150 H. She accompanied her father to Madina at the tender age of five. There she memorized the entire Qur`an and studied Islamic jurisprudence in depth. Being extremely intelligent she also became adept in explaining the Qur`an despite her young age.

She was the daughter of al-Hasan al-Anwar, the son of Zaid al-Ablaj, son of al-Imam al-Hasan (r), brother of al-Imam al-Husayn (r), son of the Daughter of the Prophet (s) Sayyida Fatimat al-Zahra (r). She is from the family of the Prophet (s) about which Allah said in the Holy Qur`an “Allah only desires to keep away the uncleanness from you, O people of the House! and to purify you a (thorough) purifying.” [33: 33]

Young Nafisa frequented the grave of her grandfather the Prophet (s) (mulazamat qabri jaddiha al-Mustafa). The People of Madina loved her deeply. She became renowned for her abstemiousness (zuhd) and piety (taqwa), for fasting the day, spending the nights in prayer and for her excessive devotion to worshipping Allah (swt).

Sayyida Nafisa used to pray the five prayers regularly behind her father in Masjid an-Nabawi (s) from the age of six. Her father used to take her by the hand and enter inside the room of the grave of the Holy Prophet (s), which is the house of Sayyida `Ayesha (r). He would address the Prophet (s) directly saying: "Ya Rasullullah!, O Beloved Prophet of Allah! I am pleased with my daughter Nafisa!" He continued these visits repeatedly until one day the Prophet (s) appeared to him in a dream saying to him, “Ya Hasan, I am pleased with your daughter Nafisa, because you are pleased with her, and Allah is pleased with her because I am pleased with her.

She performed hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) thirty times ‑ most of them on foot. She would say, “I am following my grandfather Imam al-Husayn (r) in doing that, for he said, ‘I feel shy to meet my Lord having never walked to His House,'" for which reason he used to make the pilgrimage walking.

It is said that on her circumambulation around the Ka`aba, she asked Allah (swt) "O Allah! be satisfied with me (mati`ani bi-ridaaka `annee), I see nothing that veils You from me."

When Sayyida Nafisa was 44 years old she moved to Cairo. She arrived on the 26th of Ramadan in the year 193 H. On her way, she passed through the city of Arriche. When people knew of her arrival, they rushed forth en masse to meet her, for her renown as a devout worshipper and lady saint had preceded her. Historians say the men and women of Egypt went to receive her in a huge procession, riding on horses, camels, donkeys and on foot; waiting overnight in tents; greeting her in the morning with the chanting of 'la ilaha ill-Allah' and 'Allahu akbar', and accompanying her in a huge procession from Arriche to Cairo, according her great dignity and respect.

Sayyida Nafisa hosted most of the scholars of her time, experts in jurisprudence, hadith, and Qur`anic explanation. But by far the greatest scholarly gatherings were those she hosted for the pillars of tasawwuf and the pious of her time (Aqtab al-tasawwuf). Among these pillars of tasawwuf and fiqh was Imam al-Shafi`i who had moved to Egypt from Baghdad in 109 H., five years after Sayyida Nafisa's arrival in Cairo.

One day the governor of Egypt sent Sayyida Nafisa 100,000 dirhams (equivalent to perhaps millions of dollars in today's money). He said, "Take this money from me. I ask nothing in return, but I thank Allah for this opportunity to repent. I give this money to you because of your piety." She took that money as her own and distributed it to the poor until nothing remained. Princes, nobles and many ordinary people sent her gifts. She accepted them, then distribute them in whatever way she liked.

Sayyida Nafisa was renowned for asceticism and for living a life of hardship (zuhd). When asked what her meals consisted of, Zainab, daughter of her brother, replied, "My auntie used to eat once every three days. She had a basket hanging in her niche. Whenever she wanted something small to eat she would find something in that basket, sent from Allah (swt).  She never ate anything other than food from her husband and that which Allah sent her as a gift."

The story is related that when Sayyida Nafisa arrived in Egypt and settled in her home, there was a non-Muslim family living beside her, whose daughter was paralyzed from the waist down. One day the girl’s mother brought her to Sayyida Nafisa to watch while she went shopping. She left her daughter in one corner of Sayyida Nafisa's house. Sayyida Nafisa began making ablution and water from her ablution flowed towards the girl. As the water touched the body of the girl, she experienced something strange. She began to take the water from Sayyida Nafisa’s ablution and rub it on her paralyzed feet and legs. Suddenly by Allah's (swt) Mercy, the paralysis disappeared completely and she was able to stand.

When she began to feel her death approaching, Sayyida Nafisa dug her grave with her own hands inside her home. Every day she would enter the grave and worship in it, as a reminder of the coming afterlife. She used to pray all her supererogatory prayers inside that grave. Al-Allama al-Ajhuri said, "She completed the Holy Qur`an while sitting in her grave six thousand times, and she granted the rewards of that recitation to all deceased Muslims." 

The source, and detailed biography with more info is given here:
http://www.sunnah.org/history/Scholars/nafisa_at_tahira.htm

Buti and the Unfortunate Woman

For the benefit of the people, i have transcribed this incident, here it is by Sheikh Ramadan al-Buti or Bouti (other spelling):

One day a few years ago, there walked into my office at the College of Islamic Law a young woman who was feigning a hijab- or so it appeared to me- by covering part of her hair. She requested my permission to sit down and tell me about her situation in the hope that I might point her to a way out of her dilemma or aid her in finding a solution.

Her story in short was that she had been brought up in a household which had no understanding of the meaning of religion and which lived by none of its values. She received her education and cultural conditioning first in the schools, then in the university, without anyone to watch over her or advice her in a spirit of compassion and concern. She said, “From the time I started high school, boys started hovering around me, showing admiration for me and pushing me to be more ‘liberated’ in the way I looked and acted.

“So,” she continued, “I went along with all this, and my heart turned into a kind of ‘hotel room’ that was occupied by one boy after another.

“When I went to the university I got even more involved with young men, and they all liked my liberated style. At the same time, there was constant pressure on me to ‘liberate’ myself even more and strive for self-fulfillment. During this same period of time, I got attached to a guy that I felt I’d come to love, and my feelings for him took over my whole being. He used to assure me of his sincere love for me and attachment to me, so I suggested that he approach my family about getting engaged. His response to my suggestion was positive and enthusiastic. He said that marriage was what he had in mind and that he would approach my family about the matter in the near future. As a result of this growing trust, our relationship grew even stronger and deeper. Then during one of our trysts, he managed to take from me the most precious thing I possessed. I’d been sure of his love and trusted his promises, and I’d believed my dreams that he was the one I could depend on and come to for protection.”

“What happened during that one meeting happened again on other occasions and I started reminding him about the matter of our getting engaged and urging him to hurry in fulfilling his promise to me. As for him, he started putting me off and making excuses which I realized only later he was just making up.”

“Finally during one of our times together, I demanded that he do what he had promised me with regard to talking to me family about our engagement. In response, he looked at me contemptuously and said “When I decide to get married, I’ll look for an honorable girl, not one who makes herself into a plaything for all the guys.”

“What he said that day cut me to the quick. It was like a shout that wakened me out of a long deep sleep to find myself surrounded by a crowd of ‘playboys’ who only wanted to make sport of me. I saw that I was a stranger in this world, even to my family, who had let me wander about aimlessly with no one to show me the way. Even so, I know that if I told them what had happened as a result of their neglect and lack of concern, I’d be certain to face the worst fate imaginable.”

Then, with great emotion, she said “I know for sure now that if I had protected myself with the principles and wise counsel of Islam, no impostor could have taken advantage of me and I would have continued to have both happiness and honor. And now I don’t know what to do.”

I said to her, “Was it necessary for you to put God’s commands to the test and plunge headlong into this devastating experience in order to arrive at this certainty? Wouldn’t it have been enough to realize ahead of time that this religion, in essence, is nothing but the wise admonitions of the God who is the most Merciful of the merciful? Through these admonitions, God addresses His honored servants so that they can find happiness in the care and nurture they give and in the protection which they provide from all harm.”

“You turned away from God over the past years, preferring to be led astray by the deceit of wanton, disreputable individuals rather than to be obedient to His commands and precepts. Even so, you’ll find Him to be the only true Friend capable of comforting you in your alienation and of delivering you from your misery and pain. All it will cost you to find Him is for you to be reconciled with Him in sincerity and to obey His commands to the best of your ability and with confidence and assurance.”

She said to me, “From now on, I promise God in repentance and remorse to obey His commands and submit to all His judgments. Never again will I pay attention to Satan’s deception, and I won’t give into any sort of passion or enticement.”

I said to her, “Come by to see me from time to time, and I feel confident that God will provide you a way out of your difficult.”

Then, in an extraordinary demonstration of God’s grace, only three or four days later I was visited by a young man who had come to complain to me that he felt the need to get married but hadn’t been able to find the right girl with the religious commitment that he wanted in a life partner. It was apparent that the young man was devout himself and committed to Islam based on genuine awareness and understanding.

So I asked him, “Would you be willing to consider a young woman with a pleasant appearance and whose religious faith and conduct you can be assured of? By marrying her you would merit a reward the likes of which only the most righteous attain, and I’m willing to vouch for the marriage myself.”

“Yes!” he replied enthusiastically. “Who is she?”

I then told him the girl’s story just as she had recounted it to me, and I assured him of my confidence in the sincerity of her repentance. As I spoke, he grew more and more happy and enthusiastic and in the end, he gave me the go-ahead to handle the matter as I saw fit.

Glory be to the One Who changes people’s hearts! Praise be to my merciful, loving Lord, who opened people’s minds and brought this union to pass, wiping away the crushing sorrow that had threatened to quench the spirit of this unfortunate girl who had fallen victim to profiteers- profiteers of the call to “progress “ and the warning against “backwardness.”In short, God gave me success in bringing these two together. In a single introductory session, they established a dialogue, affirmed their confidence in each other and exchanged pledges. The young man then arranged with her family for their engagement in the customary manner and God joined them in comfortable, happy marriage beneath the protective umbrella of mutual commitment to His blessed teachings. Truly did God speak when He declared, “O you who have believed, respond to Allah and to the Messenger when he calls you to that which gives you life” (8:24).

Taken from Sheikh Ramadan al-Buti’s book “Women between the tyranny of the western system and the mercy of the Islamic law”(pages 246-251)

May Allah have mercy upon him.