The QuranClub Newsletter Drawing Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Islamic Rulings and OpinionsThere are no clear and authentic texts forbidding the depiction of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) in the Quran or the Sunnah. There are some debatable hadiths that forbid drawing images in general, but many mainstream scholars today consider drawing things to be acceptable in Islam (such as Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradhawi, president of Ittihad `Ulama al-Muslimeen - World Union of Islamic Scholars). There are historic depictions of the Prophet, such as from the Ottoman period, done under the Ottoman Sultans, who were Orthodox Muslims. The Islamic rulings forbidding the depiction of the Prophet come from the last half of the 20th century, from al-Azhar and other institutions, and are all debatable. The entire issue is about respect. Is it respectful to create drawings of the Prophet or name objects with his name? It is not a 100% clear issue regardless of what some might say, but as a Muslim who wishes to gain the favor of Allah, I'd take the safer road of not depicting him or naming objects with his name. But, if someone else does it, in my opinion it doesn't necessitate the least bit of attention or condemnation. In Islam, according to the Fiqh al-Awlawiyyat (the Law of Priorities), what is clear and distinct wins over what is unclear and debatable. Kindness and forgiveness are clear and central tenets of Islam, while it is debatable whether depicting the Prophet is forbidden, for this reason the situation requires kindness and forgiveness, not condemnation. If a person creates an image of the Prophet, he has done something questionable, but people do questionable things all the time. If the person did it with a good intention, then his intention is what counts. And if the person did it with a bad intention, it should be left to God to deal with him and the Muslims in general should simply avoid and ignore him as the Quran commands when dealing with such people (7:199, 6:68, 28:55). The Quran doesn't even include any punishment or condemnation for people who make fun of Quranic verses, but simply asks Muslims to avoid and ignore such people. Those who make a big deal out of people making fun of the Prophet or the Quran haven't understood Islam correctly and are trying to fill an emptiness and purposelessness in their own lives through hating on some random fool. If those people who are so quick to join anti-depiction protests were as quick to help the poor, to go and plant trees, to fix roads, or to read Quran, their countries would have fewer problems. But since it feels so good to hate and be angry at someone (it makes one forget one's own faults and shortcomings), these people would rather do that instead of planting a tree or cleaning up a road, things that don't give you adrenaline rushes and don't usually get you TV coverage.     
Is Paradise Only for Physical Pleasures in Islam?I heard a university professor criticizing the Islamic Paradise for only being a place of physical pleasures and not having a space for intellectual activities. He hadn't understood that the Islamic Paradise given to a person is a custom-made world dedicated to the one thus blessed. It is a world made for you, in which you are treated like royalty, in which you have the freedom to do what you love, for ever and ever, without fears, worries and distractions. In Paradise all your physical needs are taken care of, to give you complete freedom to pursue your dreams. How many gifted and talented people have wasted years of their lives to take care of irrelevant things like providing their daily meals? This is what Paradise is about; it removes these silly distractions, these millions of little things that in this world cause us grief and prevent us from doing what we love. If you had the entire world to yourself what would do with it? Paradise gives you this world. So that you may use your creativity and imagination to do everything, to create everything, to work on everything, that this world's shortcomings prevent you from. Paradise is everything we wish this world to be. You want world peace? You want a loving family? Amazing friends? Is there a beautiful and sweet moment in your life that you often think of, when everything was just perfect, that you wish could have lasted forever? Paradise is about giving us these things, these moments, and making them last forever, and removing every possible difficulty and flaw. There are video games I love that I wish I could play with good friends for a long, long time. Another wish I have is to read every (interesting) book ever written. Learn every programming language. Master all the sciences. And to spend an eternity in the Golden Country
Why I am not a SalafiI received an anonymous question on our Islamic Art and Quotes tumblr asking if I am a Salafi Muslim. The answer is: No I am not. Those of them who fear Allah and the last day and always strive to do good are my beloved friends.
I believe that Islam is bigger than Salafism, Sufism, and any other sect or group. The goal of Islam is Allah, and there are many roads to Him SWT. I don't belong to any group. I call myself Orthodox, meaning that I follow the Quran and the Sunnah, but I don't have any historical allegiances and don't care about the historical rivalries between the various groups. I am with everyone who loves and fears Allah and works for the Hereafter. My biggest mentors are the prophets, peace be upon them, and I identify most with them, since the Quran is my main source of guidance. Islam is even bigger than the Islam that Prophet Muhammad, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, brought to us. Islam encompasses all true religion. The Quran, for example, calls Prophet Lut and his family "Muslims". The various groups and sects are tools that the sincere Muslim can use to get closer to Allah. The goal is Allah. Sectarianism distracts from Allah. Most sects were created with good intentions. To get closer to Allah. To get closer to true Islam and revive the religion among people. But...good intentions don't guarantee good results. Once you have created a clearly defined group with "us" and "them", all inside the same religion, you have immediately created division and sectarianism. I love and respect people belonging to various sects and ideologies, sometimes opposing one another. A sincere believer can find the right path regardless of where he comes from and what group he was born into. Thus, for example, I love and respect all of these people, though often I may disagree with some of them: al-Hasan al-Basri and the rest of the early Salaf; Ibn Taymiyyah; Ibn al-Qayyim; ibn al-Jawzi; Abu Hanifah; Imam Malik; Imam ash-Shafi`i; Imam Abu Hamed al-Ghazali; Rumi; the Azhari sheikhs Yusuf al-Qaradhawi, Muhammad al-Ghazali, and Ahmad Mustafa al-Maraghi; Imam Muhammad Abduh and his students; Imam Sa`eed an-Nursi (from Turkey) and his students; Imam Hasan al-Banna and his students; Sayyid Qutb; Muhammad Qutb; Dr. Ali Shari`ati (from Iran and Shiite, but doesn't hold any of the popular Shiite beliefs that Sunnis dislike), Dr. Nasir Subhani; Ibn al-Uthaymeen, Muhammad Salih al-Munajjid, Yasmin Mogahed; Tariq Ramadan; Yasir Qadhi. What also separates me from Salafism is that I believe the goal of the Sunnah is the Quran, and the goal of the Quran is Allah. The Sunnah is not a goal in itself. The Sunnah is meant to create a fertile environment in which the seeds of the Quran can grow. The Quran is the goal, and arguing and bickering over the Sunnah when ignoring the Quran is completely against everything the Sunnah is for. To me having or not having a beard, for example, is the very least of a Muslim's concerns. Fear Allah and the last day, and do good deeds, this is our concern. Islam is a matter of the heart. The sects invariably move attention away from the heart to appearances and judging people, is he or she for us or against us? If a person reads the Quran often, fears Allah and the last day, and always strives to do good, then what right do I have to judge him for belonging or not belonging to a particular sect? This is not to say that I hold Utopian ideas like love is all we need and regardless of what you do if your heart is good then you're fine. I am not Sufi because it focuses only on particular attributes of Allah and ignores others, to create a beautiful version of Islam, filled with love and kindness, but extremely prone to creating human beings who do not fear Allah the way He deserves to be feared, and who, focusing only on Allah's mercy, forget that His punishment is severe and that they will be judged. Salafism, on the other hand, is prone to making one forget that Allah is the most kind and most forgiving, and to making one focus only on His punishments and making Allah appear as a hardhearted and exacting micro-manager. It also often demands inhuman amounts of strength and willpower from the person, which can cause desperation and hopelessness. The prophets mentioned in the Quran are a lot more human than the ideal that Salafism seems to ask of us. They cared about the dunya and prayed for it (Prophet Ibrahim and Zakaria praying for children, Yaqub being attached to the love of his son and going blind in crying so often for him, Sulaiman asking to be a king). Many Salafis would look down on you if you show such behaviors, behaviors that the prophets showed. Prophet Ibrahim asked Allah to make Makkah a prosperous city. Some Salafis would say you should be too worried about the Hereafter to care about worldly things. But Prophet Ibrahim cared. And Prophet Muhammad, may the peace and blessings of All be upon him, cared so much about the worldly life that his ardent prayers for winning the battle of Badr (a worldly goal) are famous. And when his son or wife died he cried. Islam doesn't ask us to be automatons worshiping Allah and caring nothing for anything else. Islam tells us to enjoy life's blessings, and strive for both the worldly life and the Hereafter. Islam asks us to unite dream and day (the Hereafter and the worldly life), not to throw away the worldly life. For this reason to me the Quranic prophets, in their humanity and weakness, are better guided than many of today's Salafis. True Islam is larger than any sect or group and the smart Muslim will use the good and useful from every sect to get closer to Allah. Salafi literature reminds me not to get lazy in worship, and Sufi literature reminds me, when I fail, not to forget that Allah is most kind and forgiving. Allah has 99 attributes, many of them seemingly contradictory, and any sect that focuses only on some of His attributes and ignores others is likely to create an inaccurate version of Islam. These sects often work for some people and do a lot of good, but pure Islam itself is better; devoted to serving Allah, focusing on the Quran, too concerned with Allah's judgment to judge others, not hung up on appearances, not concerned with differences but with similarities with others, sincere, forgiving, and non-exclusionary. 
Super High Quality (True PDF) Arabic Quran for Kindle, Kindle Fire, iPad and Other DevicesThis is a dream that has finally come true alhamdulillah. A vector-based PDF version or the Madinah Mushaf. Vector-based of True PDF means that a verse can be zoomed in infinitely without it losing quality/becoming blurry. Here is part of a verse zoomed in on an Asus Transformer (10.1 inch screen): 
A screenshot on a laptop:   Download LinksOld (and my favorite) versionDownload here [PDF - 140 megabytes - right click and choose "Save as..." to save on your computer]This is the version shown in the screenshots above. The text is vector based, but the arabesque (decorations) are non-vector, thus when zoomed in they become blurry. I like this one because this mushaf is the one I've been used to reading all my life. The new one below is a different one, with different calligraphy and verse arrangements. Newer versionDownload here [PDF - 127 megabytes - right click and choose "Save as..." to save on your computer]The newer version has cleaner text and vector-based border decorations, thus this one is even more "true" PDF than the above one. However as said above, it is not the mushaf that many people are used to. Here is a screenshot, maybe you will like it: 
These PDF Mushaf files and this last screenshot were found on this [Arabic] website http://quranmadina.blogspot.com/.  The Quranic Guide to: Attaining God's MercyThe phrase la'allakum turhamoon, translated as "that you may attain God's mercy" is repeated eight times in the Quran. Looking at these 8 mentions provide a good Quranic guide for attaining the Mercy of Allah SWT, a guide for those who love the Quran and respect its advice and recommendations. Below are the eight mentions in the Quran followed by my analysis. Surat Al `Imran
Surat al-An`am
Surat al-A`raf
Surat An-Noor
Surat An-Naml
Surat Ya-Sin
Surat al-Hujurat
AnalysisHere are the actions that these verses command us so that we may attain God's mercy:
Of note here is the command for islah [helping and improving relationships] between the believers. If you are in need of Allah's mercy (and who isn't?), trying to have an active role in improving people's relationships will inshAllah lead to good results. In Quran 7:24 above, it is said "when the Quran is recited", which means that the reciter could be anyone, including yourself. The command is to pay attention when the Quran is recited. Which means that when you read Quran and recite Quran, if you do your best to pay attention to your recitation, Allah will, inshAllah look down on you with loving mercy at such a time, be it a small chapter recited during salah. And the best time to recite the Quran is when you are standing in salah, especially at night after the isha prayer, for at such a time you'd be obeying Allah's extremely important command in Surat al-Muzammil that today unfortunately 99% of Muslims feel free to ignore: "The night" in this verse means the period between the `isha prayer and the fajr prayer. Half of the night for me is 5 and a half hours where I'm writing this in Sulaimaniyyah, Iraq in February. When the verse says add a little to it or decrease a little from it, it means either to do this recitation for one third of the night, half of the night, or two thirds, as it becomes clear at the end of the chapter. According to a hadith from `Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, when this chapter was revealed to the Prophet, may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him, the Prophet and a group of the dedicated believers with him used to stand up in prayer for so long at night that their feet would swell. They weren't sure just how much of the night to stand to please Allah, so they would often end up standing until dawn (since they had no accurate ways of measuring time). This state went on, according to `Aisha, for a whole year until the last verse of the chapter was revealed: In this verse Allah's mercy, kindness and understanding is shown. Allah says to "recite what is easy" of the Qur'an. Unfortunately most take this to mean "recite it when you have absolutely nothing else to do." But the verse subtly tells us, those of us who are dedicated to Allah and love His book, which excuses are valid in Allah's eyes: illness, travel, and being engaged in war. Therefore if you are one of those who are truly dedicated to Allah, I recommend that you make it your goal to carry out this command of dedicating at least one third of the night to reciting the Quran in prayer. Unfortunately excuses are too easy to find to avoid carrying out this command. But we should never forget that an entire chapter of the Quran is dedicated to this one command. And that the elite group of Muslims who were with the prophet took it (very) seriously and carried it out. If we wish to be like them and to be in their ranks (and even compete with them as the Quran commands), we should never ignore this command like most Muslims do. Because we aren't most Muslims. We are [inshAllah and by the grace of Allah] Allah's chosen ones: One quick excuse that I have said to myself too often is that "I haven't memorized the entire Quran, I will stand the night in prayer when I finish memorizing it!" [even though I wasn't actively memorizing]. This is forgetting the fact that the chapter was revealed at the earliest days of Islam when little of the Quran was revealed. Therefore what you know of the Quran could possibly more than what many of the Prophet's companions knew at the time, yet they carried out the command. Therefore to truly carry out this command we should either spend at least one third of the night in salah in which we recite Quran, or we should spend it in memorizing the Quran to make it possible for us to recite it in salah And for those who don't speak Arabic they should dedicate the night to learning. However as I have learned many times, we shouldn't let secondary goals get in the way of our Quran reading. Therefore whatever you do to make it possible to carry out God's command, you should continue to read Quran so that you can stay close to Allah. You can for example dedicate one third of the night to reading the Quran (in the language you understand) and to reciting the Quran you know in prayer, and another third to learning Arabic or memorizing Quran. In all of this we shouldn't forget that Allah [SWT] is very kind and merciful and we shouldn't lose hope if we fail sometimes. What's important is to constantly guard ourselves against insincere excuses. One important note is to not look down on those who don't try to carry out this command. Because as the last verse of the chapter (73:20) says, even at the time of the Prophet, may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him, only "a group" of the believers carried this command out. Those of us who are (or wish to be) the vanguard of the ummah, its intellectuals, those who "listen to what is said and follow the best of it", those who always try to do what's right and good, those are the ones this command is meant for. The vast majority of the population will not be eager believers regardless of how much we wish them to be. Therefore if you wish to help people, do it in a beautiful way and with kindness, without criticism or humiliation. And if this fails then leave them alone in a non-aggressive and beautiful manner as the Quran commands: And pray for them, but don't say you are praying for them in a passive-aggressive manner, since that's not the attitude of the one who loves and follows Allah's book. The more knowledge we gain and the closer we get to Allah, the more kind, humble and non-patronizing we should become among people and the more beloved it should make us to them. For the true believer is needless, kind, and giving, and people love those who are like this. If your Islam is stressing your relationships and creating aggression in you toward others, there is probably something wrong with your heart and your understanding of Islam and the Quran. May Allah guide us and shower His mercy upon us and forgive our sins and errors. And to Allah all knowledge belongs. Whatever good there is in this, it is from Allah, and whatever bad and wrong from myself. 
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Indeed, those who have divided their religion and become sects - you are not [associated] with them in anything. Their affair is only [left] to Allah ; then He will inform them about what they used to do. [Quran 6:159] 
And obey Allah and the Messenger that you may attain God's mercy. [Quran 3:132] 
And this [Quran] We have bestowed from on high, a blessed one: follow it, then, and be conscious of God, so that you may attain God's mercy. [Quran 6:155] 
Why, do you deem it strange that a tiding from your Sustainer should have come unto you through a man from among yourselves, so that he might warn you, and that you might become conscious of God, and that you may attain God's mercy? [Quran 7:63] 
When the Qur'an is recited, listen to it and pay attention that you may attain God's mercy. [Quran 7:204] 
Hence, [O believers,] be constant in salah, and give zakah, and obey the Messenger, so that you may attain God's mercy. [Quran 24:56] 
Said [Salih to the erring ones]: Why do you seek to hasten the coming upon you of evil instead of hoping for the good? Why do you not, rather, ask God to forgive you your sins, so that you may attain God's mercy? [Quran 27:46] 
When they are told, "guard yourselves against what is before you and what is behind you, in order that you may attain God's mercy," [they turn away]. [Quran 36:45] 
The believers are brothers of one another; therefore create reconciliation between your brothers and fear Allah, that you may attain God's mercy. [Quran 49:10] 
O you who are wrapped in your clothing. Spend the night in standing, except for a little. Half of it, or decrease a little from it, or increase a little on it. And recite the Quran in tarteel (in a beautiful manner and without hurry). [Quran 73:1-4] 
Those who listen to what is said and follow the best of it: [for] it is they whom God has graced with His guidance, and it is they who are [truly] people of understanding! [Quran 39:18] 
AND [remember:] We have not created the heavens and the earth and all that is between them without [an inner] truth; but, behold, the Hour [when this will become clear to all] is indeed yet to come. Hence, forgive [men's failings] with fair forbearance. [Quran 15:85] 
and endure with patience whatever people say, and avoid them with a comely avoidance. 
