The brothers and sisters at U Penn MSA have generously posted some of the presentations from MSA East Zone 2009. My contributions are: The first part of "Pursuit of Perfection Exploring Ethical Constructs" and the second part of "Ithar: Preferring Others Over Oneself." May Allah reward Dr. Rameez Qudsi for bringing this page to our attention.

`Allamah Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani's Advice on Time Management.

This is advice Mufti Taqi Usmani gave someone seeking counsel:

The Shaykh told him:

“Recognize the importance of time. That it is an invaluable wealth. Spend it very wisely and precisely in virtuous actions.”

Next day while the Shaykh was sitting in Masjid al-Haraam facing the holy Kab’a (‘s Rukun-e-Yamani) an individual requested some elaboration on this advice. That is, as how to practically incorporate it in to one’s daily life.

Obviously pleased on the question, Shaykh replied;

“Firstly one has to recognize the importance of time per se.

Secondly, one has to organize one’s schedule to fully maximize the benefit of available time, such that not a single moment is wasted. Being wasted meaning that it is not utilized appropriately even for a worldly purpose, may it be sleeping or moderate lawful entertainment or being busy in helping another fulfill his essential obligations, etc.

Wasting time includes indulging in activities having no benefit for this life or here-after (akhira).”

The Shaykh continued:

“Develop the habit of planning.

That is, plan for the future.

If I was to get 5 or 10 minutes break between my tasks how will I spend it?

For example, while commuting to work.

Think and decide in advance.

How I am going to spend these 15 minutes besides doing the driving?

Only if one has thought of these in advance he will be able to utilize this time appropriately.

My father (Grand Mufti of Pakistan, Hazrat Mawala Mohammad Shafi’i ra) used to inform us that, “Even the time I spent in toilet I try to make use of it. If there is nothing else I scrub and clean the water jug (lota) kept in there.”

All praise to Allah, due to his training I also try to enact on this advice. When I come home from my classes I know there will be at least a 5 minute interval before the lunch is served. I have planned in advance the use of this time. Such as, to return someone’s telephone call, etc.

When a person develops this habit of utilizing the time precisely, Allah facilitates immense actions for him and also puts blessing (barakh) in time. (That is, in short duration a lot is achieved.)

Remember, heedlessness (gaflah) is a bane!”

Al-hamdu li-llah. There is an AP press statement announcement about the forthcoming Zaytuna College.


PLAINSBORO, N.J. (AP) — A group of American Muslims, led by two prominent scholars, is moving closer to fulfilling a vision of founding the first four-year accredited Islamic college in the United States, what some are calling a "Muslim Georgetown."

Advisers to the project have scheduled a June vote to decide whether the proposed Zaytuna College can open in the fall of next year, a major step toward developing the faith in America.

Imam Zaid Shakir and Sheik Hamza Yusuf of California have spent years planning the school, which will offer a liberal arts education and training in Islamic scholarship. Shakir, a California native, sees the school in the tradition of other religious groups that formed universities to educate leaders and carve a space in the mainstream of American life.

"As a faith community our needs aren't any different than the needs of any other faith community," Shakir told the Council for the Advancement of Muslim Professionals, as he sought donations at a recent conference near Princeton, N.J. "As Muslims, we need to develop institutions to allow us to perpetuate our values." More...

Ustadhah Najah Nady via MEISG List:

Dar Al-Iftaa in Egypt announcing its first Islamic studies program for women scheduled between Sunday 12th July 2009 and 9th August in Cairo, Egypt.

Purpose:

To provide an avenue for Muslim women students and professors specializing in Islamic Studies to study the traditional Islamic sciences and advanced classical texts in a methodical and intensive manner with trained scholars from Azhar.

This course and the next courses would be cumulative--meaning that the second year's summer program would build upon the first and so on.

Confirmed Teachers:

Shaykh Ali Joma'a (Grand Mufti, Egypt)
Dr. Seif Eddin Abdulfattah (Cairo University)
Dr. Abduallah Rabiea (Al-Azhar University)
Shaykh Amr Al-Wardany (Secretary, Dar al-Ifta)

Deadline: 15th June.

Fees: $230 including materials and Coffee break.

For more information about teachers, subjects and requirements see the attachments below.

Contact training@dar-alifta.org for more information.

The resolutions of the 19th Session of the OIC FA have been published! More to come...

Shaykh Suhaib Webb mentions a statement attributed to the 18th century Maliki legist, Imam al-Sawi (may Allah have mercy on him): هذا الزمان زمان السكوت ولزوم البيوت ومن يقول الحق فيه يموت i.e. "This time is a time [for] silence and clinging to [your] houses: [for] whoever speaks truth, dies." The statement is reminiscient of a hadith: The Prophet (salla llahu `alayhi wa-sallm) said: "The best form of struggle (jihad) is a truthful word [uttered] in the presence of a tyrannical authority".

Islamic Society Halaqa Series: The Essentials, II (Devotions and Basic Halal/Haram) @ 7 PM, Friday, May 1, in the Harvard Islamic Prayer Space (= Musalla) went well, al-hamdu li-llah! May Allah accept.

MIT MSA and Harvard Islamic Society present a panel discussion on

"Fiqh of Personal Finance"

Imam Suheil Laher (MIT Muslim Chaplain) & Taha Abdul-Basser

Have you ever had questions like:

Are my earnings halal (permissible)? Is it OK to take out loans for med school? Are life insurance policies OK Islamically? What does riba (usury) mean?

If so, then this panel discussion is for YOU!

Thursday, April 30th @ 7:00 PM
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Room 4-231

Shaykh Suhaib Webb has posted a precious translation of `Allama Muhammad Taqi Usmani's contribution to an anthology of essays in appreciation of the famous Egyptian Muslim religious scholar, Shaykh Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi. As many will know, Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani is one of the world strongest and most respected fuqaha'.

Shaykh Suhaib Webb has posted audio and notes for the first of a series based on Imam al-Muhasibi's Risalat al-Mustarshidin. The text is a gem for any one concerned with internal purification.

Imam Zaid Shakir has translated and annotated the original text. It is available here.

Here is the transcript of a lecture, "The Incoherence of Claims of Incoherence: Some Remarks on Internal Consistency and Legitimacy in Contemporary Islamic Financial Ethics" that I recently gave at Wharton (U Penn), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on March 15, 2009.

A must read Newsweek article on a military guard at the US Guantanamo detention center who reverted to Islam at the center.

The text of a lecture that I delivered at Wesleyan University on February 16, 2009 entitled "The Road Ahead?: An Islamic Financial Ethicist's Observations on the Current Economic Crisis and Possible Recovery Strategies is available here as a PDF. May Allah reward Chaplain Ustadhah Marwa Aly and the Wesleyan MSA who invited me.

The following is the conclusion of the text of the speech:

To conclude, the Islamic ethicist would call for deep structural changes to the prevailing financial system [namely]...1) the elimination of interest-based debt financing mechanisms in favor of asset-based financing mechanisms and 2)the elimination of risk-shifting risk management tools in favor their risk-sharing, tangible asset-based counterparts. This evolutionary path, while it may seem radical and strange to some, is, in fact, not. Rather such changes, to a large extent, are consistent with what several economists and finance academics have already been calling for and are likely to continue to call for in the...future.

I look forward to your questions. Thank you.

The Guardian (UK) is reports that Amnesty is suggesting a US arms embargo against Israel in its recent report on the alleged war crimes that occured during Israel's raids on Gaza last month.

According to a letter circulating by Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, Imam Siraj Wahhaj is out of the hospital and doing well, al-hamdu li-llah. May Allah preserve him, reward him for all his efforts and continue to benefit us by him!

Follow up (4/3/2009): There is an effort to raise funds for Imam Siraj Wahhaj's treatment. He has been diagnosed with a highly treatable form of cancer.) I encourage people to donate. (

A statement from our teacher, Imam Mohammed Hamagid Ali, in the wake of the murder of Aasiya Hassan (inna li-llahi wa-inna ilayhi raji`un ["To God do we belong and to Him do we Return"]).

The letter reads:

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is saddened and shocked by the news of the loss of one of our respected sisters, Aasiya Hassan whose life was taken violently. To God we belong and to Him we return (Qur’an 2:156). We pray that she find peace in God’s infinite Mercy, and our prayers and sympathies are with sister Aasiya’s family. Our prayers are also with the Muslim community of Buffalo who have been devastated by the loss of their beloved sister and the shocking nature of this incident.

This is a wake up call to all of us, that violence against women is real and can not be ignored. It must be addressed collectively by every member of our community. Several times each day in America, a woman is abused or assaulted. Domestic violence is a behavior that knows no boundaries of religion, race, ethnicity, or social status. Domestic violence occurs in every community. The Muslim community is not exempt from this issue. We, the Muslim community, need to take a strong stand against domestic violence. Unfortunately, some of us ignore such problems in our community, wanting to think that it does not occur among Muslims or we downgrade its seriousness.More...

While President Obama's recent alArabiya interview (see transcript) has left some even more enthusiastic about the prospect of a substantive change in US policy toward the Muslim world, in a recent essay, M. Junaid Levesque-Alam tackles the dissonance between President Obama's rhetoric and the actions of the US government immediately prior to and following his inauguration. While there is a sentence or two in the essay that goes too far (e.g. "Pity that it was not the Palestinians experiencing this apparent upswing...", which is, from an Islamic point of view, indefensible), Levesque-Alam's main contention is difficult to rebutt.

Here is an insightful post from Imam Zaid Shakir on some of the psycho-spiritual dimensions of an ideal Muslim response to the most recent Israeli raids on Ghaza.

Another article by Shaykh Zaid on the application of Islamic ethico-legal principles to modern warfare.

An interesting editorial piece on the "Arab Money" remix, a rap song by hip-hop artists Busta Rhymes, T-Payne, Akon and others in which the first two ayat (verses) of the the opening sura (chapter) of the Qur'an are used as the hook (chorus) of the song.

"It's time that Muslim activists come together with a plan to do some serious outreach to Muslim rappers, who are part of the mainstream music industry but detached from the mainstream Muslim community. The recent Busta Rhymes' “Arab Money” remix that caused a brief uproar for not only using the term ”A-rab” as in the original version but also interpolating verses of the Qur'an in it is a prime example of how brothers and sisters “in da game” need to be pulled in." Read more...

Hailing from and having grown up in NYC, having witnessed the birth of hip-hop and key milestones in its history, knowing something about the interplay between hip-hop culture and Islam in NYC in the 90s, I believe that a very firm stance is required from the African-American Muslim community, in particular, on this issue and on the many harmful aspects hip-hop culture, "urban" culture and Blackamerican popular culture in general. I may be addressing these issues in greater detail in a few weeks. Stay tuned :)

Given the appropriately intense scrutiny that conventional derivatives are under, in general, and the profound policy implications of increased adoption of derivative-like instruments by the shari`a-compliant financial services sector, I read with interest a recent media interview with Mr. Werner, Policy Director at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), in which he mentioned that ISDA's collaboration with the International Islamic Financial Market (IIFM) has produced a draft master agreement for Shariah compliant derivatives. The draft master agreement will reportedly be undergoing final Shari`a compliance review soon. As a student of some of the leading Islamic ethicists (fuqaha') who make up the IIFM's compliance review board, I am particularly interested in the board's decision on the validity of the structure that will apparently be used to implement the proposed profit swap, since it is not a matter of agreement among Islamic ethicists (fuqaha').