Sheikh Abdullah Adhami

Gender relations - not to be missed

Sheikh Abdullah Adhami

Family

Sheikh Abdullah Adhami

Promise of Satan

Sheikh Abdullah Adhami

Sheikh Abdullah Adhami

The Blessing of Women

Sheikh Abdullah Adhami

Shariah, Apostasy, Music and interacting with non-Muslims

Sheikh Abdullah Adhami

Gender, hitting wives,

Sheikh Abdullah Adhami

A link to a lecture "Our Community, Our values."

http://www.lightuponlight.com/islam/modules.php?name=Stream2&file=index&lid=353

Sheikh Abdallah Adhami

Advice to Husbands


http://www.crescentlife.com/family%20matters/advice_to_husbands.htm


By getting married you are not just getting a wife, you are getting your whole world. From now until the rest of your days your wife will be your partner, your companion, and your best friend. She will share your moments, your days, and your years. She will share your joys and sorrows, your successes and failures, your dreams and your fears. When you are ill, she will take the best care of you; when you need help, she will do all she can for you; when you have a secret, she will keep it; when you need advice, she will give you the best advice. She will always be with you: when you wake up in the morning the first thing your eyes will see will be her; during the day, she will be with you, if for a moment she is not with you by her physical body, she will be thinking of you, praying for you with all her heart, mind, and soul; when you go to sleep at night, the last thing your eyes will see will be her; and when you are asleep you will still see her in your dreams. In short, she will be your whole world and you will be her whole world.



The best description that I personally have ever read describing the closeness of the spouses to each other is the Quranic verse which says: "they are your garments and you are their garments" Indeed, spouses are like garments to each other because they provide one another with the protection, the comfort, the cover, the support, and the adornment that garments provide to humans. Just imagine a journey in the winter of Alaska without garments! Our spouses provide us with the same level of comfort, protection, cover, and support in the journey of our lives on this earth as garments would do in the Alaska journey.



The relationship between the spouses is the most amazing of all human relations: the amount of love and affection, intimacy and closeness, mercy and compassion, peace and tranquility that fills the hearts of the spouses is simply inexplicable. The only rational explanation for these most amazing of all human feelings is that: it is an act of God. Only God Almighty in His infinite power, boundless mercy, and great wisdom can create and ingrain these amazing feelings in the hearts of the spouses. In fact God is reminding those who search for His signs in the universe that these feelings in the hearts of the spouses are among the signs that should guide humans to His existence as He says in the Quran," And among His signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves that you may dwell in tranquility with them and He has put love and mercy between your hearts: verily in that are signs for those who reflect"
But the human heart is not a static entity, it is very dynamic. Feelings can and do change with time. Love may wither and fade away. The marital bond might weaken if not properly cared for. Happiness in marriage cannot be taken for granted; continuous happiness requires constant giving from both sides. For the tree of marital love to remain alive and keep growing, the soil has to be sustained, maintained, and nurtured. Remember that our Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him had found the time to go out to the desert and race with his wife Aisha. She outstripped him but later after she had gained some weight, he outstripped her. Remember that the Prophet took his wife to watch the young Ethiopians playing and dancing their folk dances.
The show of emotions is necessary to keep the marital bond away from rusting and disintegrating. Remember that you will be rewarded by God for any emotions you show to your wife as the Prophet said "one would be rewarded for anything that he does seeking the pleasure of God even the food that he puts in the mouth of his wife" Never underestimate the importance of seemingly little things as putting food in your wife's mouth, opening the car's door for her, etc.





Remember that the Prophet used to extend his knee to his wife to help her ride her camel...
Try to always find some time for both of you to pray together. Strengthening the bond between you and God is the best guarantee that your own marital bond would always remain strong. Having peace with God will always result in having more peace at home. Remember that the Prophet gave glad tidings for those couples who wake up at night to pray together. The Prophet even urged the spouse who rises up first to wake the other spouse up even by throwing cold water on his/her face.
Always try your best to be be good to your wife by words and by deeds. Talk to her, smile to her, seek her advice, ask for her opinion, spend quality time with her and always remember that the Prophet said "the best of you are those who are best to their wives" Finally, it is common that spouses vow to love and honor their spouses until death do them part. I do believe that this vow is good or even great, but not enough! It is not enough that you love your wife. You have to love what she loves as well. Her family, her loved ones must also become your loved ones. Don't be like my colleague who was unhappy about his wife's parents coming to visit for a few weeks. He candidly said to her "I don't like your parents" Naturally she angrily looked at him straight in the eye and said "I don't like yours either"... Also, it is not enough that you love her until death do you part. Love should never end and we do believe there is life after death where those who did righteousness in this world will be joined by their spouses and offspring. The best example in this regard is the Prophet whose love to Khadija his wife of 25 years extended to include all those she loved and continued even after her death. It was many years after her death and he never forgot her and whenever a goat was slaughtered in his house he would send parts of it to Khadija's friends and whenever he felt that the visitor on the door might be Khadija's sister Hala, he would pray saying "O Allah let it be Hala"

Sheikh Abdallah Adhami

The right to change one's religion
by Shaykh Abdallah Adhami
23 October 2007

New York, New York - From the Code of Hammurabi to the Code of Maimonides, most major systems of law have affirmed that apostasy must be punished.

In the renowned code of the Roman emperor Justinian (483-565 CE), corpus juris civilis — the basis of all Roman canon law and of modern civil law — apostasy was "to be punished by death" and there was "no toleration of dissent".

The Biblical codes stipulate that the "one who doubts or ridicules one word of the Torah — or of the rabbinical authors — is a 'heretic' in the fullest sense, an infidel ... and there is no hope for him." The laws concerning such an unbeliever are very strict: "he may be killed directly". Or as Maimonides, the 13th century Andalucian rabbi and philosopher, advised regarding the abeyance of apostasy law in his era, "his death may be caused indirectly."

Islamic law, (shari'a), likewise stipulated killing in cases of established public apostasy. Though there is little literature on the emergence and application of apostasy law in the early periods of Muslim history, its actual application usually depended upon whether its declaration was public or private. Within the Islamic state, what minorities — religious and otherwise — did in their private lives was left to their own discretion, even if it may have been technically termed "deviant" or against Islamic teaching.

Shari'a, like all religious law, governs rites of worship and codes of individual and communal conduct and ethics. Contrary to stereotypical notions of religion, the earthly realm within shari'a is in fact pragmatically understood to be essentially secular.

From the point of view of religion, the fundamental nature of the human being is to yearn to worship God unencumbered. The private realm of apostasy had thus always reflected more complex dimensions that make ultimate human judgment impossible. The mysteries of the heart and mind are as beyond theology as they are barely fathomable to neuroscience.

It is our creative encounter with earthly, secular life that reveals our capacity for usefulness to others, and it is the premier instrument by which our own spiritual station is elevated. Authentic, sincere worship ultimately becomes the daily barometer of our spiritual state.

Free, rational debate had always been accommodated within the religious context of shari'a. This was a uniquely Islamic phenomenon, as true in European Cordoba as it was in Arabian Baghdad. Neither the theological abstraction of the Mu'tazilites, a 9th century group of philosophers, nor the unmitigated foreign dialectics by the secretive 10th century group, Brethren of Purity, for example, was ever grounds for removing one from the fold of Islam.

The most salient evidence for not punishing "private" apostasy in Islam is the perennial existence of the so-called hypocrites amidst Medinan society despite grave Qur'anic passages against them. Moreover, private "heretical" thought was neither censured nor censored; as long is it was not publicly preached, it was not condemned as such, nor were there articulations of a need to suppress it.

Outward or visible stability in the earthly domain is what allows the institutions of civil society to continue.

The non-violent resistance of the Prophet Muhammad in Mecca and his diplomacy during the Treaty of Hudaybiyah taught his companions a similar lesson. Under this Treaty, the Prophet allowed people to emigrate without any reprisal, despite the fact that they were abandoning Islam in the process (some having only adopted the new religion for reasons of self-interest).

No prophet was ever given the license to pass judgment over the faith of a human being — as the Qur'an repeatedly reiterates, judgment is ultimately with God alone. Hence, constructive service of our sacred traditions lies in showing their relevance as a vehicle of infinite creativity, not in demoting them to preoccupation with judgment of contemporary culture.

We need to acknowledge and affirm that diversity and difference are part of the divine intent for creation — that we were made as nations and tribes so that we may "learn about and be enriched by the ways of each other" (Qur'an, 49:13). Provincialism and relativism will always challenge diversity — especially when the latter is disguised as tolerance; and not because people are inherently incapable of living together, either.

We need a renewed devotion to the truth, and to seeking it freely through our established non-sectarian, scholarly institutions. Thomas Jefferson exhorted: "Truth is ... the proper and sufficient antagonist to error." It is only through respectful free argument and debate that ideologies can be judged and challenged on their own merits.

The reformation that is direly needed — across the entire globe — is the honest reassessment of the original sources of all our oppressive cultural myths and tyrannical modes of thinking.

As Muslims, we need to establish a higher barometer for what constitutes competence in the service of the scholarly disciplines of shari'a. This would equip us with greater clarity and confidence and prevent us from thoughtlessly demonstrating in passionate protest every time a passing wind seems to challenge our faith.

As religious leaders of all faiths, we need to acknowledge our responsibility for much alienation and estrangement among the faithful around the world. This would begin to re-establish the credibility of our institutions, which would eventually re-ignite the religious imagination of the masses.

Lastly, we need a renewed commitment to focus on an ethos of compassionate, selfless service as a public trust; and this is certainly more becoming of the example of the Blessed Messengers that we claim loyalty to.



* Shaykh Abdallah Adhami is an Arab-American imam and a leading scholar of Islam. He is currently working on an exploration of the linguistic implications of apparently problematic verses in the Qur'an. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 23 October 2007, www.commongroundnews.org

Sheikh Abdullah Adhami

Understanding your nature

Shaykh Al-Arabi Darqawi

Shaykh Al-Arabi Darqawi said,

“If you want to treat your enemy with what is duly deserving for him,

preoccupy yourself with the love of the beloved,

for if you preoccupy yourself with hate and enmity

then the enemy gets from you what he wanted

and you have the lost opportunity

to love the beloved.”


From his Epistles.


As quoted by Sheikh Abdullah ibn Adhami's talk on Islamic civilisation
http://www.sakeenah.org/lr_lectures.php