“If the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make; when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day, and cry all ‘We died at such a place;’ some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in battle: for how can they charitably dispose of any thing when blood is their argument! Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it…”

William Shakespeare
King Henry V.

I picked up the thick red book because of two things: the fact that it was written by Gwynne Dyer, and because, on the cover of his book, I saw the following line: “I am afeard there are few die well that die in battle”. The book was called ‘War’, in bold black font displayed prominently on the front; the words  sat above it, quietly white against a backdrop of solid, blood red. I was immediately interested in reading anything by Gwynne Dyer,  because he had come to speak at my high school in either late 2002, or the spring of 2003, I can’t quite remember. What I do remember, however, is that he spoke about the then-impending war in Iraq.

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Ordinary eye of mine prying into deepening sky

Alas, you cannot see an end to the sprawling ether,

Like you cannot see an end to the Lord’s mercy

Lo, His mercy is beyond human meter

And peer as you do closely at the sprawling galaxies manifest

How you overlook the evident - as these lines attest!

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The Day Innocence Died
by Michael Weinreb

It’s true, what she says about the graves. I went to see them not long after I heard Lonise Bias tell an incredible story to a group of South Carolina high school students: While witnessing the burial of her son Jay, she looked down and realized she was standing on the grave of her eldest son, Leonard. I had assumed it was a rhetorical flourish, a metaphor crafted for effect by a guest speaker who was getting paid to whack some sobriety into a room of spaced-out pubescents with self-image issues.

But then I drove to the cemetery, in a Maryland suburb of Washington called Suitland, and I trudged up a hill, and I found the markers, a couple of rectangles blotched with age, stamped into the dirt and rocks and tufts of grass. And it is true — there is perhaps a foot of space between her boys. They are, quite literally, resting side by side.

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le chemin confus
by Omar Moqeet*

holier than thou response
the imperfect doesn’t require a hand to save it
from falling off the cliff
the true journey
le chemin confus

of the two roads that diverged in the yellow wood
it is the one most traveled
imagine frost’s surprise

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Islam in the West

By Andrew Booso

I have an aversion to prefixing Islam with an adjective, such as Western or European. Like so many of my positions, this personal distaste is perhaps due to the words of Shaykh Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi in his From the Depth of the Heart in America, where he warned an American audience in 1977 against developing a ‘European or American Islam’. Shaykh Nadwi simply talked of Islam. I prefer to talk of Islam and then, for example, ’some Muslims from England’ or ’some Muslims from Egypt’. Thus the religion remains one, but the diversity of the people is acknowledged. Moreover, it seems somewhat exaggerated to talk of different ‘Islams’ on the basis of varied clothing or foods, or because of certain cultural practices (like marriage norms) or legal edicts that might all be sanctioned by valid legal reasoning from the agreed sources of Islam. Nevertheless, I am a Muslim who lives in the West, as do many others; therefore a discussion of our community is a worthwhile pursuit. Here are some issues for thought.

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So `Abdullah ibn Rawahah (RAA), whenever he met one of the Companions of the Prophet (PBUH), used to say, “Come, let us believe in our Lord for a while.” When the Prophet (PBUH) heard about this, he said, “May Allah have mercy on Ibn Rawahah, for he loves the gatherings that the angels feel proud to attend.”

Let us sit down and believe for a while…

In the dappled sunlight of this June afternoon

Amongst the swaying leaves and the violet bloom

I promise not to ramble on about economic pacts

I will not bore you with depressing trade facts

And partake neither in vain babble nor pretension-

But instead marvel at the exquisite surface tension,

Of a single drop of tender dew

Serenely dripping into view.

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During Hajj, both the noble Companions Abu Bakr and Umar (May Allah be pleased with them) used to pray Two Rakah in Mina. However Uthman (R), when he was the Caliph, said he will pray 4 Raka’ah. Ibn Mas’ud (R) disagreed and stated that two people better than Uthman prayed 2 (referring to Abu Bakr and Umar) . Yet, when the prayer was about to commence, Ibn Mas’ud (R) joined the rows and prayed…

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Asalamu alaykum,

It is with great happiness, thankfulness and humility that we announce Sheikh Muhammad al-Hassan Walid al-Dido’s permission to translate his fatwa, writings and lectures! We ask Allah to make us in the service of the scholars.

Staff

Cultivating A Historical Consciousness Of The Matter

Maqasid ash-Shar’iah, has been a subject of debate for sometime among scholars, the debate is not birthed of late, (in the contemporary post colonial modern world ) but was born in the very heart Islamic scholarly tradition. The discourse lost intensity with the onslaught of the colonial imperative wherein it became dormant given the fall of al-Andalus (see: Nyazee, Imran; Theories of Ijtihad). The discourse was aided and attuned and revived with Shaikh al-Islam Tahir Ibn Ashur al-Maliki al Zaytuni at-Tunisi (r), Shaikh al Islam Muhammad Abdu al Azhari (r), Shaikh Rashid Rida al Azhari (r), Shaikh Abdullah Daraz al -Azhari (r), Shaikh al-Islam Muhammad Khidr Hussain al-Maliki al Azhari (r) and others (contemporary scholars).

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