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In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate 25 June 1995 Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Ukraine: Greetings of Peace. My friend Usama al-Majdhub of Damascus called this morning and asked me to answer a question he had heard from some people in the Ukraine. He is flying to Kiev tomorrow, and wanted to pick up the answer tonight. To introduce myself, I am an American living in Jordan who converted from Christianity to Islam some years ago. My thoughts on this subject are many,

When life is reduced to the size of a small screenNine years ago at the Cairo Suhba we said, “The Internet is death.” The repeated use of purposeless websites bends the fitra out of shape. For some people, their fitra bends so much it becomes irreversible. It’s just not possible to straighten them out. It was many years ago that Sheikh Yunus remarked to me about the dunya, “When it dominates, it takes captive.” We might say the same about the Internet. It too takes the human heart, spirit, and b

A few days ago, a man climbed to the rooftop of his apartment block in Spain. Perched up high, he called out, attracting the attention of other residents stuck at home under Spanish 'Stay in Place' regulations. People appeared on their balconies to hear what the man had to say. Our man on the rooftop was not there to lecture. He was a fitness instructor who proceeded to do simple exercises, such as jumping jacks, for people on their balcony to follow along. An unusual fitness class had begun. Ev

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate (13) The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “When two vituperate each other, [the sin of] what they say is borne by the one who first began, as long as the one wronged does not transgress [the bounds of merely defending himself, by answering back with worse]” (Muslim, 4.2000: 2587. S). And when a group of Jews covertly cursed the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) by using a play on the words “as-Salamu ‘ala

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate The Fiqh of Islamic Behavior and Character 1. It is of the sunna to be afraid for one’s past, one’s state at death, for calamities, and for treachery and disgrace. It is of the sunna to be patient and steadfast in worship, in blessings, in tribulations, and in divine punishments in one’s body, reputation, family, or money. It is of the sunna to have firm patience in avoiding sins, and to make up for one’s past misdeeds. 2. It is

The Twenty-First Century Stress Syndrome James L. Wilson Hypoadrenia is a range of debilitating symptoms that are only too familiar to many people. It is known by many names including neurasthenia, adrenal apathy, subclinical hypoadrenia, and adrenal fatigue. The condition has been recognized, written about, and treated for over a hundred years, but is now generally not taught in medical schools, becoming a problem invisible to modern medicine. In contrast, fifty years ago it was more likely

Oliver James Over the past several years British psychologist Oliver James has observed a virus he has termed affluenza spread through the English-speaking world. Affluenza is no ordinary illness. It targets the mind and destroys one’s emotional well-being. It can destroy friendships and marriages, leave one lonely and exhausted, and ruin childhoods. It makes for selfish, vindictive people, who are prone to depression and anxiety, which in extreme cases leads to hospitalization. And it trigge

A New Way of Life David Servan-Schreiber (d. 2011) David Servan-Schreiber sensed something wasn’t quite right a year after his thirtieth birthday. A professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, he felt his brain didn’t work. Eventually he was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor. This type of cancer is rare with a poor prognosis. People often survive less than a year, even after aggressive treatment. Being a medic he asked what he could do to fight the disease. Th

The emerging pandemic of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes in the Indian subcontinentBiryani used to be food of nawabs and Sultans. It was the food of occasional festivals. It was never the food of everyday life. Some 12,000 years ago India was very different. The subcontinent was transitioning from a hunter-gather society to an agrarian, neolithic culture. Many parts of the country that are now desert were thriving agricultural areas where barley and eventually wheat were grown. These grains

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate al-Hikam al-‘Ata'iyya Infinitude is the native land from whence Allah has created the soul, then summoned it again upon the tongue of His messengers (Allah bless them and give them peace) from its exile. This is the first of a series of articles the interpreter has been asked to write on "traditional Islamic spirituality," a science that deals with answering this summons, lifting the heart from the narrowness of the self to the limitlessn

A boy sits hunched over his computer playing a video game. His reactions are fast and his motivation high. His brain is working overtime, and he sits still for hours on end. He does not appear to have an attention deficit disorder, as his concentration is total. However, since kindergarten he has been on drugs such as Adderall, Ritalin, and Concerta. He has a friend across town who is equally intelligent and has not been medicated, but his parents and teachers are not happy. Even the girls in

Preliminaries Some forty years ago a theory that a growing tumor could be “starved to death” by cutting off its blood supply was presented in the New England Journal of Medicine. It was met with skepticism, ridicule, and dismissal. This theory was called anti-angiogenesis. Today there are twelve anti-angiogenic drugs on the market for cancer treatment, with twenty-six more in the final stages of human testing, and another hundred-plus in human trials. Every major pharmaceutical company has an

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate 21 October 1997 Dear Sidi Hamza, As-Salamu 'alaykum wa rahmatu Llahi wa barakatu. I was asked about copyrights at the Shafi'i fiqh lesson at last winter's Toronto din intensive. The answer I gave was that copyrights are an issue differed about between the sheikhs I have studied with. Sheikh 'Abd al-Wakil Durubi (Allah have mercy on him) said that they had no basis in Sacred Law. From this point of view, nothing prevents someone who h

How the Antivaccine Movement Threatens Us All Paul A. Offit Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania. Founding member of the Autism Science Foundation. More than 140 peer-reviewed papers on vaccination. Death, blindness, paralysis, and stunted growth were ever present in childhood until the latter half of the twentieth century. Let us begin by simply noting the number of children affected by

 In 1980 a group of patients were admitted into the prestigious Mayo Clinic in the United States. They reported vague symptoms of fatigue and pain under their right rib. Upon testing, doctors found inflammation in their liver. They found scarring in and around the liver. There was inflammation that stopped the liver working properly. There was severe liver damage, and there was a build-up of fat in the liver. This was the first time doctors had seen a damaged, fatty liver in people that was not

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and CompassionateINGREDIENTSApprox. 6 cups flour: 3 cups of very coarsely ground whole-wheat flour, 1 cup regular whole-wheat flour, and 2 cups pure oat bran1/2 teaspoon sea-salt1/3 cup olive oil2 cups water for mixing2 cups water for baking, applied to bread surface with a clean spongeINSTRUCTIONS Mix flours with salt in a mixing bowl. Mix oil and water and add to the flours. Form dough. Depending upon the flours, you may need to add more water, if the dough

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate      A cardinal principle of the tariqa is zuhd or nonattachment to other than Allah. One should always leave what does not concern one in this life or the next. Our sheikh used to repeat two verses of poetry by Imam al-Humaydi: The meeting of people will never give you anything but gibberish of useless gossip. So diminish your meeting of people, save to take knowledge or improve your condition. Masters say, "Increase in the physica

The Truth about Cell Phone Radiation, What the Industry Is Doing to Hide It, and What You Can Do to Protect Your Family Devra Davis At the height of the Cold War sailors would stand next to radar installations on newly commissioned naval ships in order to make themselves infertile. In 1956 one of England’s leading epidemiologists found that X-rays of pregnant women increased the risk of childhood cancer. She was pilloried—then the findings were confirmed some thirty years later. After World W

Breaking Free from the World of Excess John Naish Getting richer is no longer making us happier—if it ever did. Depression, self-harm, and suicide are on the rise. Families are splitting up. Children are increasingly pressured and some desperately unhappy. Success and happiness are now conditioned by job status, by the cars we drive, the brands we wear and consume, the loyalty cards we are admitted into, the airlines we travel on, or the neighborhood we live in. Success is determined by our s

For Men The Five Basic Exercises (5BX) fitness plan was developed for the R.C.A.F (The Royal Canada Air Force) as a progressive fitness training plan based on scientific principles to develop and maintain the physical fitness of their military personnel. The program has been widely adopted by the public. 5BX fitness training is designed to show you how to develop and hold a high level of physical fitness, regardless of where you may be located and can be carried out in limited space, without equ

Reviewing the Impacts of the Western Diet upon ImmunityIan A. MylesNutritional Journal 2014Mothers influence their child’s dietary preferences while their baby is still in their womb. The food that she enjoys during her pregnancy will shape whether her child eats his vegetables or gorges on high-sugar junk food. From the womb until the age of two, the child inherits his microbiota from his mother. The microbiota is huge amounts of bacteria and flora, that vastly outnumber human cells, and which

 Overcoming addiction – whether to smartphones, messaging, video watching, Internet surfing, gaming, pornography, drugs, or any of the world’s allurements – is to overcome the nafs. And the first thing the salik knows about the nafs is that it is easily fooled. For the spirit to rise, we use the intellect to rein in the ego.Never before in history have anonymity, convenience, and immorality come together so seamlessly as they do now. What was once only possible with effort and planning is now re

The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar—Your Brain’s Silent Killers David Perlmutter Remember that hot slice of toast dripping in butter you ate for breakfast? Perhaps it had Vegemite on. That bagel, that croissant, or those cereals you wolfed down. Think of the fragrance of coffee and freshly baked bread that you inhaled—two wonderful, wonderful aromas. Remember the anticipation, the delight, the contentment you experienced? Or the euphoric pleasure from eating a doughnut. This pl

I would respond by looking to see how traditional ulama or Islamic scholars have viewed it. For the longest period of Islamic history--from Umayyad times to Abbasid, to Mameluke, to the end of the six-hundred-year Ottoman period--Sufism has been taught and understood as an Islamic discipline, like Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir), hadith, Qur'an recital (tajwid), tenets of faith (ilm al-tawhid) or any other, each of which preserved some particular aspect of the din or religion of Islam. While

Question Is someone who has an idea that is kufr or “unbelief” thereby an “unbeliever”? Response The short answer, somewhat surprisingly, is “not necessarily.” In some cases such a person is, and in some not. Many people today read an expression labelled in books of Islamic law as kufr, and when they realize that some Muslim they know or have heard of has an idea like it, they jump to the conclusion that he is a kafir. Charging fellow Muslims with unbelief (takfir) is an enormity in the eyes of