The Great Imam,imam al-nasai (r.a)

The Great Imam

Abu Abdurrahman Ahmed ibn Shuaib ibn Ali ibn Sinan ibn Bahr ibn Dinar Al-Khurusani was born in the year 215 A.H as the great Imam clearly states himself (although some say 255 A.H or 214 A.H) in the famous city of Nasa, situated in Western Asia known at that time as Khurusan which was a famous centre for Islamic Knowledge where millions of Ulama'a were situated and Hadeeth and Fiqh was at its peak. Thus he primarily attended the gatherings and circles of knowledge (known as halqas') in his town and attained knowledge, especially Hadeeth from the Ulama'a. Thereafter his inspiration increased of traveling around the world to seek knowledge from other various scholars of different countries and cities. When he was 20 years old, he started traveling and made his first journey to Qutaibah. He covered the whole Arabian Peninsula seeking knowledge from the Ulama and Muhadditheen of Iraq, Kufa, Hijaz , Syria and Egypt . Finally he decided to stay in Egypt .

Teachers and Students

Hafiz Ibn Hajr Rahimahullahi Alaih says that it is impossible to name and gather all his teachers but notably the most famous ones are: - (1) Ishaq ibn Rahweh (2) Imam Abu Daud Al-Sijistani (author of Sunan Abu Dawood) and (3) Qutaibah ibn Saeed. Although some scholars like Hafiz ibn Hajr Rahimahullah also named Imam Bukhari as his teacher but this is incorrect because Imam Bukhari never met him. However he studied under the famous Huffaz-e-Hadeeth from different countries and cities.

After the great Imam had decided to stay in Egypt he started to lecture, mostly narrating Ahadeeth to the extent that he became famous by the title Hafizul Hadeeth.

Many people would attend his gatherings and many famous Great Scholars became his students and notably the most famous ones are: -

•  Imam Abul Qasim Tabrani

•  Imam Abubakr Ahmed ibn Muhammad also known as Allamah ibn Sunni

•  Sheikh Ali, the son of the famous Muhaddith, Imam Tahawi.

It is also narrated that Imam Tahawi personally narrated from this Imam.

Memory, Piety and other Qualities

He was a man full of taqwa, piety and he possessed a photographic memory too. The famous Sheikh Allamah Zahabi was once asked who has a better memory, Imam Muslim (author of Sahih Muslim) or this great Imam he replied this great Imam. Allamah Zahabi would also say that this great Imam possessed more knowledge in Hadeeth than Imam Muslim, Imam Tirmidhi and Imam Abu Dawood (who was his teacher).

The famous Scholar and Commentator of the Holy Qura'an would say narrating from his teachers that this Great Imam was the most knowledgeable in Egypt .

The Great Imam would put on good clothing according to the Sunnah of our beloved Prophet Muhammad Allah's peace and blessings be upon him and would eat poultry everyday with nabeeth acting on the Sunnah so that he could worship Allah with ease. In fact it is narrated that the man would fast every other day which is classified in the Hadeeth as Saum-u-Daoodi (the fast of Daood A.S).he would worship Allah continuously throughout the nights and teach Hadeeth throughout the day without forgetting that to fulfill the rights of his four wives and treat his slaves like children. The Imam would also perform Hajj nearly every year and would also take part in Jihad. He was a straight forward truthful man and nothing or none could stop him from saying the truth. Allah the Bestower had granted him all the good qualities a person

could possess. At the same time he was an extremely beautiful man and the beauty of his face stayed up to his death. This in reality was the Noor Allah bestows upon certain pious accepted servants.

Test and Death

It is the procedure of this world that when Allah the Almighty grants someone a high status and makes him a great saint then envity makes its way forward, grudges start, hardships appear from nowhere, all as a test from Allah Subhanahu Wata'ala to elevate even further the status of the person. The Great Imam was not exempt from this procedure and just as envity approached Habil it also approached the Great Imam. False accusations were made against him as they were in the past on other Ulama'a. Finally, after facing many hardships, in the month of Dhul-Qa'adah 302 Hijri the great Imam left Egypt and headed towards Darussalaam, Baghdad . But the hardships didn't stop.

The people in Baghdad were more inclined to the Khawarij sect because Banu Umayyah ruled over them. Thus they had grudges against Hadhrat Ali (Karamulahu Wajhahu). They would swear at him in sermons and normal gatherings, whereas on the other hand they exaggerated in the virtues of Sayyidina Muawiyyah (RadhiAllahu Anhu). So, the Imam wrote an article KHASAIS ALI so that the people not only stop swearing at Hadhrat Ali (Karamulahu Wajhahu) but also recognize the true virtues of Hadhrat Ali (Karamulahu Wajhahu) which were also many. When the article was complete he once read it out in a sermon for the benefit of the people but the people became angry and asked him what he had wrote regarding Hadhrat Muawiyyah? He replied I need not write his virtues and excellence for you have exaggerated over the limits and you know his virtues very well, so there is no need! Their anger increased and finally he was whipped a few times but he stayed steadfast and passed the test from Allah which in return has a great reward. Thereafter he intended to go to Makkah Al-Mukarramah but as he arrived in Makkah his time was over and Allah gave him death at the age of 88 in the holy city near the Kaaba and he was buried between Safwa and Marwa. Hafiz ibn Hajr and Allamah Zahabi state that he passed away in Ramalah, Palestine during the journey to Makkah and the body was sent to Makkah and buried between Safwa and Marwa. Wherever the death may have occurred but Muslims will not forget the date Monday 13th of Safr 303(A.H), when the fishes of the sea, the worms inside the earth and the humans altogether felt the loss of the great Imam and WHO WAS THIS GREAT IMAM? IMAM AL-NASAII the famous Muhaddith.

Muqallid or Mujtahid

Imam al-Nasai was a follower of the Shafi Fiqh according to Allamah Subqi, Shah Waliullah, Shah Abdulaziz and many other scholars. The leader of the Ulama'a Allamah Anwar Shah Kashmiri is to the opinion that he was a Hanbali and this has also been stated by Sheikhul Islam Hafiz ibn Taymiyyah but the truth is that he was a Mujtahid more inclined towards the Hanbali Fiqh but many a time would differ from the Hanbali scholars.

Children

As mentioned before that the Imam had four wives but the historians only mention one son whose name is Abdul Kareem, one of the narrators of the Sunan of his father.

The Great Author

The great Imam also left behind many beautiful and beneficial works. Many of which unfortunately are not published but we can without any doubt conclude from what we have understood that his knowledge and excellence is no less than that of Imam Bukhari and Allamah ibn Hazm.

These are a few of his famous works:

•  Sunan Al-Kubra.

•  Sunan Al-Sugra/Al-Mujtana/Al-Mujtaba.

•  Amul Yawmi Wallaylah.

•  Kitaby Dufai wal Matrookeen

•  Khasais Ali.

•  Al-Jurhu wa Ta'adeel.

•  Sunan Al-Nisai.

His famous book known as Sunan Al-Nisai which is taught around the globe in every Islamic institute and which possesses a virtue of being one of the Sihah Sitah (the six books generally taught in hadith).

In reality when the Imam had finished compiling Sunan Al-Kubra he presented to the governor of Ramalah so the governor asked him “is it all sahih (are all the narrators 100% authentic)?” he replied in the negative, thus the governor suggested and requested that he compiles another book and gathers in there Sahih Hadeeth. So then he did this and named his book Sunan Al-Sugra (the small Sunan) and Al-Mujtaba and Al-Mujtana (both mean carefully chosen) and this is the Sunan which we know as Sunan Al-Nasai.

In this book he follows the footsteps of Imam Muslim and Imam Bukhari (R.A). Overall most of the Ahadeeth are Sahih and where he narrates a weak narration he clearly clarifies the weakness. Thus it is 3rd in number in the Sihah Sittah after Bukhari and Muslim according to some Ulama'a because of its Sahih narrations. He clearly clarifies the hard words and brings different narrations for one particular Hadeeth as Imam Muslim does. Many Ulama'a have written commentaries on this famous work including Allamah Sindhi, Allamah Suyuti and Hadhrat Sheikhul Hadeeth Moulana Muhammad Zakaria Rahmatullahe alay..

May Allah accept the work of this great Imam and may Allah give us the taufeeq to appreciate his works. AMEEN.

Source :http://www.inter-islam.org/Biographies/imamnasai.html

Somalia joins Brunei by banning Christmas celebrations 'to protect Islam'

The government of Somalia has issued a ban on Christmas and New Year's celebrations in the Muslim country, saying the festivities "have nothing to do with Islam."
"We warn against celebration of Christmas, which is only for Christians," Sheikh Mohamed Kheyrow, director of Somalia's ministry of religion, said on state radio. "This is a matter of faith. The Christmas holiday and its drum beatings have nothing to with Islam."
• Sultan of Brunei bans Christmas 'because it could damage faith of Muslims'
He said the ministry has sent letters to the police, national security intelligence and officials in the capital Mogadishu instructing them to "prevent Christmas celebrations."
The announcement had echoes of Islamist militants al Shabaab, which controlled the capital Mogadishu until 2011. Among their edicts was to ban Christmas celebrations.
It was not immediately clear what prompted the government announcement. Somalia is almost entirely Muslim, but it hosts thousands of African Union (AU) peacekeepers, including from the majority-Christian countries Burundi, Uganda and Kenya.
• Muslim bus passengers save Christian 'brothers and sisters' during Al-Shabaab attack
The country, which is struggling to emerge from two decades of fighting and chaos, has also seen a growing number of Somalis returning from Europe and North America, sometimes bringing foreign traditions and attitudes with them.
Officials also said that Christmas celebrations may attract attacks from the Islamist militants al Shabaab.
"Christmas will not be celebrated in Somalia for two reasons; all Somalis are Muslims and there is no Christian community here. The other reason is for security," Abdifatah Halane, spokesman for Mogadishu mayor, told Reuters. "Christmas is for Christians. Not for Muslims."
Last Dec 25, al Shabaab claimed responsibility for an attack on the main AU base in Mogadishu, which lasted several hours and left three peacekeepers and a civilian contractor dead.

Source : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/12067683/Somalia-joins-Brunei-by-banning-Christmas-celebrations-to-protect-Islam.html

Islam in Jamaica

The statistics for Islam in Jamaica estimate a total Muslim population of about 5,000.[1] There are several Islamic organizations and mosques in Jamaica, including the Islamic Council of Jamaica and the Islamic Education and Dawah Center, both located in Kingston and offering classes in Islamic studies and daily prayers in congregation. Outside of Kingston, organizations include Masjid Al Haq in Mandeville, Masjid Al-Ihsan in Negril, Masjid-Al-Hikmah in Ocho Rios, the Port Maria Islamic Center in Saint Mary and the Ahmadiyya Mahdi Mosque in Old Harbour.

The first Muslims in Jamaica were West African Moors captured in the Reconquista sold as slaves to traders, and brought to Jamaica on ships.[2] Over time most of them lost their Islamic identity due to forced mixing of ethnic groups. Mu’minun of African descent belonging to the Islamic nations of Mandinka, Fula, Susu, Ashanti and Hausa ceaselessly tried to maintain their Islamic practices in secrecy, while working as slaves on the plantations in Jamaica. By the time the slaves were liberated, much of the Muslim faith of the past had faded, and the freed slaves picked up the faith of their slave masters.

About 16 percent of the 37,000 indentured Indian immigrants who arrived to Jamaica between 1845 and 1917 were Muslims. Muhammad Khan, who came to Jamaica in 1915 at the age of 15, built Masjid Ar-Rahman in Spanish Town in 1957, while Westmoreland's Masjid Hussein was built by Muhammad Golaub, who immigrated with his father at the age of 7. The indentured Muslims laid the foundation of the eight other masjids established in Jamaica since the 1960s, with the advent of an indigenous Jamaican Muslim community that now forms the majority of the Muslim populace on the island.

Muhammad Al-Faatih: about whom the Prophet gave glad tidings

For eight centuries, the conquest of Constantinople, now Istanbul Turkey was a dream for the Muslim commanders. Ever since the era of the revered companion, Mu`aawiyah Ibn Abu Sufyaan, there had been many attempts to conquer it, but none had succeeded.

Every Muslim commander wanted to be the conqueror praised in the narration in which the Prophet  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ) said: "You will conquer Constantinople. Its commander is the best and its army (that will conquer it) is the best."

Who was then the person about whom the Prophet  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ) gave glad tidings? It was Muhammad Al-Faatih may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him son of the Ottoman Sultan Murad II.

Muhammad Al-Faatih may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him as a child and his excellent preparation:

Muhammad Al-Fatih was born on 27th  Rajab, 835 A.H.,  30th  March, 1432. He was brought up under the supervision of his father, Sultan Murad II, the seventh Ottoman Sultan. His father prepared and trained him to shoulder the responsibilities of the position of a Sultan. Muhammad Al-Fatih memorized all the Quran, learnt the Prophetic narrations, Islamic jurisprudence, mathematics, astronomy and the skills required for war.

He also learnt Arabic, Persian, Latin and Greek languages. He joined his father in his battles and conquests.

His father appointed him as a ruler of a small emirate so that he could receive practical training on administering state affairs under the supervision of some of the top scholars of that time. This matter influenced the character of the young prince and tinted his personality with Islamic morals and manners.

Shaykh Aaq Shamsd-Deen, one of the scholars who supervised the upbringing and education of Muhammad Al-Faatih, managed to inculcate in his heart the spirit of Jihaad and the desire to be a person with high ambition.

The Shaykh also told Muhammad Al-Faatih may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him that he may be the one referred to in the Prophetic narration mentioned above. All this shaped the character of Muhammad Al-Faatih. He was devoted to Jihaad, highly ambitious, widely cultured, and had deep knowledge of the skills of war and combat.

Taking power and his efforts to achieve the glad tiding:

After the death of his father, Sultan Murad II on 5th Muharram, 852 A.H., 7th February, 1451 A.C., Muhammad Al-Faatih may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him took over and became the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He was a strong young man, only twenty years old, very enthusiastic and ambitious. He was thinking of the conquest of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. This dream overwhelmed him to the extent that he would not talk about any subject except for the conquest of Constantinople. He would not even allow anyone who was sitting with him to talk, except about the expected conquest.

The first step in achieving his dream was to take control of the Strait of Bosporus so that he could prevent any support or supplies that might come to Constantinople from Europe. So he built a huge castle on the European seashore of the Strait of Bosporus. Along with top senior officials, he personally participated in building the castle. It took three months to build this castle that came to be known as the Roman Castle. On the other bank of the Strait of Bosporus there was the Castle of Anatolia. It then became impossible for any ship to cross unless it obtained permission from the Ottoman forces.

At that time, a talented engineer managed to make a number of cannons for the Sultan, Muhammad Al-Faatih may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him. One of these cannons, never known before that time, was 700 tons and its projectile weighed 1,500 kilograms.

The sound of its shell could be heard from a long distance away. It was pulled by one hundred oxen aided by one hundred strong men. This giant cannon was called the Sultanic Cannon.

The conquest of Constantinople and the realization of the glad tidings:

After completing his preparations, Sultan Muhammad Al-Faatih may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him marched to Constantinople with an army of two hundred and sixty-five thousand fighters. This army had infantry forces as well as horsemen. Huge cannons supported this army. The army besieged Constantinople and the Ottoman cannons started to fire their missiles at the fortified walls of the city day and night. From time to time, the Sultan surprised the enemy with a new war plan until the city defenders lost control and their forces gave up.

At dawn of Tuesday, 20th Jumaadaa Al-Awwal, 827 A.H.,  29th May, 1453 A.C., the Ottoman forces managed to penetrate the walls and drive away the defenders who fled. The people of Constantinople were taken by surprise when they saw the Ottoman flags waving on their walls and the soldiers flooding into the city.

After the Ottoman forces conquered the city, Sultan Muhammad may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him arrived on his horse in a great procession that included his ministers and army commanders. Ever since that time, the Sultan was known as Muhammad Al-Faatih (the Conqueror). The soldiers were shouting:

Mash-Allaah! Mash-Allaah! Long live our Sultan! Long live our Sultan!

The Sultan's procession marched until it reached Hagia Sophia church where the people of the city had gathered. When they knew that the Sultan had arrived, they bowed and prostrated and they were all weeping and crying because they did not know their fate; what Sultan Muhammad Al-Faatih may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him would do to them.

When the Sultan arrived, he dismounted from his horse and prayed two Rak`ahs thanking Allah Who had blessed him with this conquest. Then the Sultan addressed the people of the city who were still bowing and prostrating in tears:

Stand up! I am Sultan Muhammad and I would like to tell you, your brothers, and all the people present that your lives and freedoms are protected.

The Sultan ordered that the church be turned into a mosque and for the first time, the call for prayer was heard from this place. Until now, this mosque is still known as the Mosque of Hagia Sophia. He also decided to take Constantinople as a capital of his country. It was called Islambul, meaning the House of Islam. Later on the word was viciously twisted to become Istanbul.

The Sultan was very tolerant and merciful with the people of the city, and acted according to the teachings of Islam. He commanded his soldiers to treat their prisoners of war in a good manner. The Sultan himself paid the ransoms for a large number of prisoners of war from his own money. He also allowed those who left the city when it was under siege to return home.

The aftermath of the conquest of Constantinople:

Muhammad Al-Fatih may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him attained this victory when he was twenty three years old. This indicated his early military genius. He also deserved the glad tidings of the Prophet  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ) who foretold that a good person would conquer that city.

Later on, Muhammad Al-Faatih may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him headed to complete his conquests in the Balkan. He managed to conquer Serbia Greece Romania Albania and Bosnia Herzegovina. He also looked forward to conquering Rome so that he would have another source of pride in addition to the conquest of Constantinople.

In order to achieve this great hope, he needed to conquer Italy. He prepared a tremendous fleet for this mission. He managed to land his forces and a large number of cannons near the Italian city Otarant. Consequently he managed to capture its castle in Jumaadaa Al-Awwal 885 A.H., July 1480 A.C.

Muhammad Al-Fatih may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him decided to take Otarant as a base for his northern military operations until he could reach Rome. The European world was terrified because of this attempt and they expected the fall of the historical city, Rome into the hands of Muhammad Al-Fatih may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him. However, he died suddenly (on  4th  Rabee' Al-Awwal, 886 A.H.,  3rd  May, 1481 A.C.) while he was preparing to realize this dream. All Europe was very happy when they knew about his death. The Pope of Rome ordered that thankfulness prayer be held in churches as a means of expressing joy and happiness over the news.

Muhammad Al-Fatih  may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him as a statesman and a sponsor of civilization

During the reign of Muhammad Al-Faatih and because of his wise leadership and well-planned policy, the OttomanState reached boundaries that it had never done before.

All these conquests were not the only achievements of Muhammad Al-Faatih may Allah have mercy on him. Through the help of some of his loyal men, he managed to establish a constitution based on the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Prophet  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ) and the Ottoman state adhered to this constitution for about four centuries.

Although he was very busy, he managed to establish more than 300 mosques, 192 of which were in Istanbul alone. He also built 57 schools. Among his most famous architectural monuments are the Mosque of Sultan Muhammad, the Mosque of Abu Ayyoob Al-Ansaari, and SaraiTub-QabuPalace.

Muhammad Al-Faatih may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him was known for his love for literature. He was a good poet and a regular reader. He liked the company of scholars and poets and made some of them ministers. Whenever he heard about a great scholar in any field, he would help and support him or ask him to come to Istanbul in order to benefit of his knowledge.

The character of Muhammad Al-Faatih may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him:

Muhammad Al-Faatih may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him was a committed Muslim who abode by the rulings of Islamic jurisprudence. Because of the way he was brought up, he was a pious man. As for his military conduct, it was very civilized and it was unfamiliar to Europe in its Medieval Ages.

Owing to his ambition fostered by his teachers who always encouraged him to be the conqueror of Constantinople he managed to make the greatest of his achievements by conquering this city.

Muhammad Al-Faatih may  Allah  have  mercy  upon  him managed to realize his dreams through hard, continuous work, and well-organized planning. For example, before besieging Constantinople he prepared for the war by making cannons, preparing his fleet, and making use of all the factors that might render him victorious.

Through high ambition, determination, and the effort to achieve his goals, he managed to materialize his dream, make his hope an existing reality which made him one of the great Muslim heroes and conquerors.

source : http://www.islamweb.net/en/article/136061/muhammad-al-faatih-about-whom-the-prophet-gave-glad-tidings

Syrian refugees in Turkey wait for fighting to end

An estimated 30,000 Syrians are staying close to the border so that they can quickly return home if peace comes.

Mardin, Turkey - Millions of Syrians have been displaced internally and externally by the war that has been going on for almost five years.

Almost 80 percent of Syrians are now living in poverty, with two million children out of school because of the conflict.

Next door in Turkey, over two million Syrian refugees live in poverty, with an estimated 30,000 living in temporary shelter around Mardin near the Syria-Turkey border.

They have crossed into Turkey to escape the war but are staying close enough so that, if peace comes, they can quickly return home.

Hamed Mujadami, from Aleppo, thinks there will be no problem forming a transitional government that represents all Syrians.

"Syrians are united people and there are no problems between us," he said.

"We've lived together for hundreds of years. When the revolution came, everyone joined it. The reason people stood up was the Assad family."

Anas Kasim, another refugee, said President Bashar al-Assad should be allowed to stay in power if it meant getting peace in the country.

"Let him stay if it brings peace," Kasim said.

"We just need to go back to our country, our schools and our homes. We're so tired of living in exile. We've had enough. God help us."

But Mohammed al-Sofi from Hasakah thinks Assad should go.

"If Assad is allowed to stay in the country he has destroyed, what will we be left with?" he said.

"Every family in Syria has been split up because of him. And now we are expected to let him and his ugly regime stay?"

All of them, however, want the fighting to end.

But they also said that until the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant fighters are defeated, they will not go back to their homes.

Source :http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/syrian-refugees-wait-fighting-151219182034727.html

Islam in Ireland

The documented history of Islam in Ireland dates to the 1950s. The number of Muslims in Ireland has increased since the 1990s,[1] mostly through immigration. The 2011 ROI census found 49,204 Muslims in the Republic of Ireland, constituting 1.07% of that state's population and at the time of the 2001 UK Census there were 1,943 living in Northern Ireland.[2]

History

The earliest mention of Ireland in Muslim sources originates in the works of Al-Idrisi in his famous Tabula Rogeriana mentioned Irlandah-al-Kabirah (Great Ireland).[3]

On 20 June 1631 a North African pirate ship captained by Jan Janszoon (Murad Reis) sailed into Roaring Water Bay in West Cork and raided coastal village of Baltimore. A crew of slave traders roused the villagers from their beds, slaughtered anyone who resisted, and herded 107 people into the hold of their waiting ship. Men, women and children were taken, even down to babies in the cradle. The villagers were sold into a life of slavery in the Ottoman Empire.[4]

In 1845 Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid declared his intention to send £1,000 along with three ships full of food to the Irish people. According to Abdullah Aymaz in an article in The Fountain magazine, the British administration tried to block the ships, but the food arrived secretly at Drogheda harbor and was left there by Ottoman sailors.[5][6] Shipping records relating to the port appear not to have survived. Newspaper reports suggest that ships from Thessaloniki in the Ottoman Empire sailed up the River Boyne in May 1847,[7] although it has also been claimed that the river was dry at the time. A letter in the Ottoman archives of Turkey, written by prominent Irishmen, explicitly thanks the Sultan for his help.[8]

The organisational history of Islam in Ireland is complex, not least because of the immense variety of ethnic backgrounds of Irish Muslims.[9] The first Islamic Society in Ireland was established in 1959. It was formed by students studying in Ireland and was called the Dublin Islamic Society (later called the Islamic Foundation of Ireland).[10] At that time there was no mosque in Dublin. The students used their homes and later rented halls for Jum'ah (Friday) and Eid (Muslim holiday) prayers. In 1976 the first mosque and Islamic Centre in Ireland was opened in a four-storey building at 7 Harrington Street, Dublin 8[citation needed]. Among those who contributed to the cost of the Mosque and Islamic Centre was the late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. In 1981 the Ministry of Endowment and Islamic Affairs of Kuwait sponsored a full-time Imam for the Mosque.[citation needed]

In 1983, the present building of the Dublin Mosque and Islamic Centre was bought, renovated and the headquarters of the Society moved from Harrington Street to 163 South Circular Road, Dublin 8.[citation needed]

In Cork, prayer halls are located in housing estates. Cork's Muslim community operates out of an industrial estate, while hoping to raise money to build a new mosque.[11]

In 1992, Moosajee Bhamjee became the first (and to date only) Muslim Teachta Dála (Member of Irish Parliament).[12]

Demography and ethnic background

According to the 2011 Irish census, there are 49,204 Muslims living in the Republic of Ireland,[13] representing a 51% increase over the figures for the 2006 census. According to the 2006 Irish census, there were 32,539 Muslims living in the Republic of Ireland,[14] representing a 69% increase over the figures for the 2002 census (19,147). In 1991, the number of Muslims was below 4,000 (3,873).[15] Islam is a minority religion in Ireland, behind Roman Catholicism and members of the Church of Ireland (incl. Protestants. The 2006 census recorded the number of Roman Catholics at 3,644,965, with 118,948 Protestants.[16] In terms of numbers, Islam in Ireland is relatively insignificant, and although Muslims can claim to be the third largest faith group in Ireland[1] they also lagged significantly behind those with no religion, at 175,252, and those who did not state a religion, at 66,750.

According to the 2001 census, there are 1,943 Muslims (1,164 males 779 females) in Northern Ireland.[17]

The Muslim community in Ireland is diverse and growing rapidly, and its numbers are not determined by the country's history to the same extent as the UK and France, where the majority of Muslims are immigrants or descendants of immigrants from former colonies, or Germany and Austria, where the majority of Muslims are Turkish migrant workers and their descendants. Just over 55 per cent of Muslims were either Asian or African nationals with 30.7 per cent having Irish nationality.[16] The census also revealed that of the 31,779 Muslims resident in Ireland at the time of the census, 9,761 were Irish nationals, less than the number of Asians (10,649) although more than the 6,909 African nationals. The census of 2011 found there were 49,204 Muslims in Ireland, "a sharp rise on five years previously".[18] The Muslim immigration at the end of the 90s was caused by the Irish economic boom and asylum seekers from diverse Muslim countries, and in the 20-year period between 1991 and 2011 the Muslim population increased 1000%, from 0.1% to 1.1% of the population of the republic.[18]

Mosques and denominations

In 2003, the Islamic Cultural Centre and Foras na Gaeilge joined forces to plan translate the Koran into Irish for the first time.[19]

In September 2006 an umbrella organisation, the Irish Council of Imams, was established. It represents 14 imams in Ireland, of both the Sunni and Shia traditions. It is chaired by Imam Hussein Halawa (Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland) and its deputy chairman is Imam Yahya Al-Hussein (Islamic Foundation of Ireland). Imam Dr. Umar Al-Qadri (Al-Mustafa Islamic Cultural Centre Dublin 15), Imam Salem (Cork Mosque), Imam Khaled (Galway Mosque) and Imam Ismael Khotwal (Blackpits Mosque) are among its founding members.

Sunni

• Belfast Islamic Centre [Established in 1977][20]
• Northern Ireland Muslim Family Association.[21]
• Bangladesh Islamic Community Centre (Corporation South, Belfast)[22][23]
• the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland [3] in Clonskeagh, Dublin. Imam: Hussein Halawa;
• the Dublin Mosque (run by the Islamic Foundation of Ireland [4]) on the South Circular Road. Imam: Yayha Al Hussein;
• Al-Mustafa Islamic Cultural Centre, Dublin 15 :Imam: Dr. Umar Al-Qadri
• Muslim Association Forum, Ireland, situated at the Islamic Foundation of Ireland [5]) in Dublin and established since 1999, and acquired Charity status in 2001, as a melting pot for Muslims from African background to teach and share Islamic knowledge.
• Muslim Association of Ireland [6] Executive Director: Dr. Khaled Suliman
• Turkish Irish Educational and Cultural Society Fethullah Gulen in Dublin, established in 2004[24]
• Ballyhaunis Mosque, Co. Mayo was built in 1987, making it the first purpose-built Mosque in Ireland. It is a small mosque, which accommodates about one hundred and fifty worshippers. It was built by a Muslim businessman called Sher Rafique who used to own a Halal meat factory there.[25]

Muslim students in universities

There are several student Islamic societies (ISOC) in universities all across Ireland especially in the major universities such as UCD, TCD, UCC, NUIG, ISSNI Queen's Belfast, RCSI, DCU, Dublin Institute of Technology, IT Tralee, IT Tallaght, IT Blanchardstown, DBS.[28]

Yearly events include regular (weekly halaqas & linguistic classes), social (Food festivals), cultural (Eid), Charity drives (Charity week), physical (sports), Academic (speakers tours, lectures, courses, conferences & seminars), Intellectual (debates) and campaigns (Islam awareness & justice)

The Federation of Students Islamic societies (FOSIS) Ireland [8], is an umbrella organisation established in the early millennium (~2000) whose mission is to unite, serve and represent Muslim students.[28] It also seeks to bring these students together, to share experiences and to offer help and advice where appropriate, uniting Muslim Students to positively contribute to Irish communities.[28]

• UCD ISOC [9] [10] was established in 1991
• TCD MSA [11] was established in 1998
• RCSI ISOC [12] was established in 1999
• Dublin Institute of Technology ISOC was established in 2004
• IT Tralee was established in 2008
• IT Blanchardstown was established in 2009

The Wisdom of Luqman

Luqman [the wise] (alaihissalam) is a well-known sage, whose advice to his son has been mentioned in the Holy Qur'an. Luqman's sayings and the words of advice he gave to his son, contain rare wisdom, and quite a number of Traditions refer to "Luqman's advice to his son".

One of these are: "O my dear son, sit in the company of the Ulema (religious scholars) frequently and listen carefully to what the wise men say, for Allah gives life to the dead hearts by the 'Nur (light)' of wisdom, just as He revives the dead earth by heavy life-giving rains."

They relate that once a stranger passed by Luqman (alaihissalam) while he was sitting among his followers. The man said, addressing Luqman, "Aren't you the bondsman of such and such tribe." He replied," Yes, I was." The stranger asked again, "Aren't you the one who used to graze the goats near such and such hill?" Luqman replied, "Yes, I am the same person." The man then said, "Then what has brought you to this noble position?" Luqman (alaihissalam) replied, "I was very particular about a few things and I observed them on all occasions, viz. Fear of Allah, truthfulness in speech, fulfilling a trust and avoiding useless talk."

Luqman advised his son, "My son entertain good expectations from Allah without losing fear of His punishment. A fear of His punishment should make you despair of His Mercy." His son replied, "The heart is one. How can it contain hope and fear at one and the same time?" Luqman (alaihissalam) responded, "A believer is such as if he possessed two hearts: one teeming with hope and the other equally full of fear."

He exhorts his son to recite "Rebi Aghfirlee" (O my Lord, forgive my sins) frequently. For, there are certain hours during which Allah's special favors descend upon His men and everybody is granted whatever he asks from Allah.

He says: "My dear son no one can perform good deeds unless he possesses a firm belief in Allah. If a person's heart is unsound, he is very weak in performing good actions."

"My dear son, if Satan (the Devil) were to create doubts in your mind, let your firm belief overpower him and silence his whispers; and if he tempts you to be negligent in virtues, defeat him with remembrance of the grave and the Day of Resurrection; if he (the Devil) tempts you towards the joys of this world or makes you afraid of the hardships of this life, say to him, 'One must inevitably leave this world (neither the luxuries nor the hardships of this life are enduring).'"

He says: "My dear son, he who tells a lie loses the freshness of face, he who cultivates bad habits will ever remain sad; it is far easier to move huge mountains from one place to another than to reform the ignorant stupid."

He says: "My dear son, abstain from telling lies; for lies soon arouse enmity and hatred for the liar."

"My dear son, be very particular about attending funeral prayers and avoid attending festivities. For, funerals remind one of the Hereafter and festivities divert One's attention towards this world."

"My dear son, do not eat anything, when your stomach is full; it is better to put food before a dog than to overeat."

"My dear son, don't be so sweet that people swallow you up, nor so bitter that they spit you out."

"My dear son, do not be less capable (in devotions) than a roster which starts crowing at early dawn and you be laying asleep in bed."

"My dear son, don't delay Taubah (Repentance), for death may take you unaware."

"My dear son, do not make friends with stupid people, lest you should develop a liking for their foolish talk. And do not incur the enmity of a wise man, lest he should turn away from you in disgust (and you should he deprived of getting the benefit of his wisdom)."

"My dear son, let no one but the pious partake of your food and always consult Ulama (religious scholars) in your affairs."

Someone asked Luqman (alaihissalam), "Who is the worst of men?" He replied, "The one who does not mind being watched while doing an evil deed."

He says: "My dear son, associate frequently with the pious for, in this way alone, you can attain to the virtues that they possess. Besides, when Allah's special favors descend upon these beings you will also be able to receive your share of blessings; for when it rains; showers fall on all sides of the house."

"My dear son, avoid the company of the wicked people, for no good can be expected to come out of associating with them. Moreover, if at any time, Allah's punishment befalls them, you will also he affected by it."

He says: "A father's punishment is as beneficial for a child as is the water for the fields."

He says: "My dear son, since the day you were born, everyday, you are getting closer to the Hereafter with your back towards this world. So, your abode in the Hereafter is far nearer to you (because you are advancing towards it everyday, at all times) than your house in this world (because you are moving farther and farther away from it day by day)."

He says, "My dear son, avoid incurring debts; for a debt is a humiliation by day and a grief by night. (One is disgraced when the creditors make demands by day, and one spends the night in grief, worrying about his debts.)"

"My dear son, entertain hopes of mercy from Allah, but let not your hopes make you bold in committing sins; be fearful of Allah but let not your fear make you despair of His mercy."

"My dear son, if someone comes to you with the complaint that so and so has taken both his eyes and you actually see both his eyes missing, do not form any judgement about the person until you have heard the other side. For, this man might have hit the other person first and taken out four eyes earlier."

When the last hour came for Luqman, he said to his son, "My dear son, I have given you a lot of advice during my lifetime; now that I am leaving the world, I would like to advise you about six points:

(1) Busy yourself in the affairs of this world to the extent of the remaining period of your life (which is nothing when measured against the eternity of the Akhirah (the Hereafter).

(2) Worship Allah according to the measure of your dependency on Him (and, obviously, one needs His help in everything).

(3) Make preparations for the Hereafter according to the extent of your stay in that world (and, obviously, one shall have to stay there eternally, for there is no other place to go to after death).

(4) Continue to struggle for redemption from Hell-fire till you are sure you have attained it. (It is common knowledge that, if someone is under trial for a grievous offence, he continues to make efforts for his acquittal till he is sure that the case is going be decided in his favor.)

(5) If you have the audacity to indulge in sins, do so to the extent that you can endure Hell-fire (for, punishment of sins is dictated by law and you are never sure whether the Sovereign, however infinite His mercy may he, will grant you mercy petition.)

(6) When you want to commit a sin, look for a hiding place that is not being watched by Allah and His angels (for, everybody knows the consequences of engaging in a revolt before the eyes of the Sovereign Himself or in the presence of his secret agents.)

Source : http://www.islamicbulletin.org/newsletters/issue_15/luqman.aspx

Lessons from Islam about smart investing

Islam, which many Americans consider a threat, has a valuable and little-noticed lesson for Western investors. Following Muslims' Shariah law, the religion's investing style avoids highly indebted companies that burn brightly -- and risk fizzling out.

With interest rates headed up in the U.S. and red flags abounding regarding the dangers of overleveraging, Shariah's risk aversion may once again pay off for investors. In recent years, amid debt-happy euphoria, the returns of Islamic-oriented investing in the West have waned.

In the U.S., the term Shariah connotes medieval behavior like stoning infidels, amputating petty criminals' hands and subjugating women. To Muslims, however, it is a moral code vital for civilization.

And Shariah investing? For the few Westerners who know something about it, this means a ban on gambling, tobacco and alcohol stocks. Less known is its avoidance of financial services shares, because banks and Wall Street firms traffic in debt instruments, and Islam forbids charging interest. Along with that is Shariah's prohibition on companies that are too reliant on bonds and loans.

Shariah investors, for instance, snubbed oil producers that went heavily into debt to take advantage of the shale boom. Good thinking. This year through early November, 36 drillers have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as dwindling crude prices decimated revenues -- and the companies' ability to service the huge debt loads. Pipeline operator Kinder Morgan (KMI), groaning under almost $45 billion in borrowings, announced Tuesday it was slicing its quarterly dividend by 75 percent.

Globally, the Shariah-compliant sector has surged to $1.6 trillion in assets over the past three decades, according to the Global Islamic Financial Review, making it hard to ignore. While much of that is in the Muslim world, several American funds follow Islamic precepts.

Amana funds, the largest U.S.-based family of Islamic-oriented mutual funds, have posted mostly so-so performances since 2009, as corporations worldwide issued a plethora of bonds to take advantage of minuscule interest rates. "When risky, debt-fueled stuff does the best, Amana doesn't," said David Kathman, an analyst with research firm Morningstar.

Consider Amana Growth (AMAGX), the group's flagship, with $1.8 billion in assets. It averaged 7.62 percent annual returns over the past 10 years, beating the Standard & Poor's 500 by a half-percentage point, says Morningstar. Although that may not sound like a lot, compound it and the difference is appreciable.

In 2015 as of Thursday, however, the fund is down 1.78 percent, versus a 0.27 dip for the S&P 500. None of this is to say that Amana Growth is a stodgy blue-chip player: 42 percent of its holdings are in technology, and as the fund's name implies, it specializes in growth stocks. The fund's biggest holding is software maker Adobe Systems (ADBE), up 28 percent this year.

Over the past 12 months, investors have pulled $236 million out of Amana Growth. Analyst Kathman attributes that to the fund's trailing performance, not politically tinged developments like the rise of Islamic State, the terrorist massacres in Paris and San Bernardino, California, and Donald Trump's anti-Muslim fulminations. The vast bulk of Amana's investors are Muslim.

Shunning "sin stocks" isn't confined to Islamic funds. Various Christian faith-based funds also won't buy stocks involved with booze, cigarettes and gambling. Shariah adds pork producers to its taboo list.

Nevertheless, forbidding these investments likely has little affect on Shariah funds' returns. Shares in tobacco have done very well lately -- such as Diageo (DEO), which more than doubled since 2009 -- as have those in alcohol, like Altria (MO), whose price has tripled.

Offsetting that lost opportunity are casino stocks, now suffering traumas in Macau, the gaming mecca on China's coast. Owing to a Chinese government crackdown on gambling and the nation's economic slowdown, Las Vegas Sands (LSV) is down by half since early 2014.

Nevertheless, these developments pale when compared with the rollicking ride financial stocks took. Shariah investors sidestepped their 2007-2009 collapse, when the iShares U.S. Financials (IYF) exchange-traded fund slid 75 percent. In 2008, Amana Growth lost 29 percent, but the then-finance-heavy S&P 500 was off 37 percent. (While financial stocks recovered later, they have been flat this year.)

Unfortunately, widespread unease about Islam in the U.S. obscures the virtues of Shariah funds. Calls for preventing Muslims from entering the U.S. are just part of the trend. Seven states have barred courts from using Shariah law. As Usmat Hayat, a director at the CFA Institute, wrote in a blog post earlier this year: "Shariah, after all, is a particularly freighted term in the U.S., where it carries negative political connotations." And that's a shame.


Source :http://www.cbsnews.com/news/lessons-from-islam-about-smart-investing/

Islam in Chile

The statistics for Islam in Chile estimate a total Muslim population of approximately 4,000, representing less than 0.1% of the population.[1] There are a number of Islamic organizations in Chile, including the "Muslim Society of Chile and As-Salam Mosque" (Spanish: Sociedad Musulmana de Chile y Mezquita As-Salam) in Santiago, Chile, "Bilal Mosque"(Mezquita Bilal) in Iquique, and the "Mohammed VI Cultural Center" (Centro Cultural Mohammed VI) in Coquimbo, the Community Islam Sunni Chile (Comunidad Islam Sunni Chile) .

History

According to Chronicles of the History of Chile by Aurelio Díaz Meza, there was a man in the expedition of discoverer Diego de Almagro, called Pedro de Gasco who was a morisco, or Muslim from Spain who was forced to convert from Islam to Catholicism. The coming of moriscos was covered by history but, recently scholars of Chilean history have started acknowledging the country's Moorish heritage and its effects on the development of Chilean culture and identity.

It is known that in 1854 two “Turks” resided in the country, a situation that was repeated in the censuses of 1865 and 1875. Their country of origin is not known, just that they were natives of some territory of the immense Ottoman Empire, and this was followed two years later by the first major wave of Muslims to Chile began in 1856, with the arrival of Arab immigrants from the Ottoman Empire territories consisting of today's Syria, Lebanon and Palestine.

According to the 1885 census, the number of “Turks” had risen to 29, but there is no precise information on their origin and their faith, since religion was not included in that census. However, the census of 1895 registered the presence of 76 “Turks”, 58 of them Muslims, who were primarily concentrated in the north of Chile in Tarapacá, Atacama, Valparaiso, and Santiago. In the census of 1907, the Muslim population was reported to have increased to 1,498 people, all of them foreigners. They were 1,183 men and 315 women, representing only 0.04 percent of the population, although this was recorded as the highest percentage of Muslims in Chile’s history.[3] In 1920 a new census showed that the number of Muslims had decreased to 402, with 343 men and 59 women. The greatest numbers were in Santiago and Antofagasta, with 76 in each province. The latest census figures from 2002 found a total of 2,894 Muslims living in Chile (0.03% of the population over 15), 66% of whom were men. The previous census of 1992 did not include Islam as an alternative.

In Santiago, the first Islamic institution of Chile, the Society of Muslim Union of Chile (Sociedad Unión Musulmana), was founded on 25 September 1926. Later, on 16 October 1927, the Society of Mutual Aids and Islamic Charity was established. With the 1952 census, the number of Muslims had risen again to 956. The majority lived in Santiago, with the rest of the population scattered in the provinces of Antofagasta, Coquimbo, Valparaíso, O'Higgins, Concepción, Malleco, Cautín and Valdivia, without much organization among them. Their numbers decreased again, so that by 1960 there were only 522, with the majority of 209 living in Santiago. A decade later, the number of Muslims had increased to 1,431. However, the census did not indicate whether they were men or women, nationals or foreigners. Nevertheless, they were spread throughout the country.

In 1988, the construction of the mosque of Santiago named Mezquita As-Salam was initiated by Sheikh Taufiq Rumie', who had led the Muslim community for more than sixty years. The mosque was finished in 1989 and was inaugurated by a prince of Malaysia in 1996, and it was reported that by end of the 1980s, some indigenous Chileans had also converted to Islam, with numbers increasing after the completion of the mosque. Muslim Chilean population was increased by the presence of foreign trade and investment from Muslim countries. Many Malaysian businessmen and their families settled Chile after the inauguration of the mosque by a Malaysian prince. Due to the external interference, and especially to the strengthening of Shia Islam by part of the Iranian help in 1996, they inaugurated Centro de Cultura Islámica, in Las Condes, Santiago, where they consolidated a Shi'ite Muslim community who mostly arrived in Chile in the 19th century. Most Shi'ite Muslim Chileans are of Iranian blood, they may still speak Persian and/or other Iranian language, aside from Arabic and Spanish. In 1997, Pakistani retailers purchased land for the construction of the Bilal Mosque and madrasa in Iquique, which was completed in 1999. Following the death of Sheikh Taufiq Rumie' in 1998, Usama Abu Gazaleh was elected Imam of the mosque following the passing of Taufiq Rumie'.

Infrastructure

Through the 1970s and ‘80s, there were no religious leaders or centers for praying. Muslims who maintained the faith met in the residence of Taufik Rumie’ Dalu, a trader of Syrian origin. In 1990 the construction of the Al-Salam Mosque began, the first in the country. In 1995 another mosque was inaugurated in Temuco, and 1998 a new one in Iquique. Sources of the Islamic community indicate that at the moment, in Chile, there are 3,000 Muslims. Many of those are Chileans[citation needed] who, as a result of their conversion, have even changed their names. In spite of the small number of believers, they are not a homogenous community. The majority are Sunni, and the rest are Shiites, Sufi groups have also arisen.

Today

Since the September the 11th Attacks, there has been a minor, initial backlash against the Muslim community, as part of wider trend of suspicion towards Muslims in non-Muslim countries, although it is believed that the Muslim community as a whole, has remained well-integrated in broader Chilean society.

There are a number of organizations founded by the Muslim community in Chile, including:

• Asociación Islámica de Chile (Islamic Association of Chile)
• Centro de Cultura y Beneficencia Islámico
• Centro Chileno Islámico de Cultura de Puerto Montt

References

1. Miller, Tracy, ed. (October 2009), Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population (PDF), Pew Research Center, p. 35, retrieved 2009-10-08
2. Islam Online. "The Muslim Community in Chile Origins and Dreams". Retrieved 2009-01-29.

Ikrimah Ibn Abi Jahl r.a

He was at the end of the third decade of his life on the day the Prophet made public his call to guidance and truth. He was held in high regard by the Quraysh, being wealthy and of noble lineage. Some others like him, Sa'd ibn abi Waqqas, Mus'ab ibn Umayr and other sons of noble families in Makkah had become Muslims. He too might have followed their example were it not for his father. His father, Abu Jahl, was the foremost proponent of Shirk and one of the greatest tyrants of Makkah. Through torture, he sorely tested the faith of the early believers but they remained steadfast. He used every strategem to make them waver but they continued to affirm the truth.

Ikrimah found himself defending the leadership and authority of his father as he pitted himself against the Prophet. His animosity towards the Prophet, his persecution of his followers and his attempts to block the progress of Islam and the Muslims won the admiration of his father.

At Badr, Abu Jahl led the Makkan polytheists in the battle against the Muslims. He swore by al-Laat and al- Uzza that he would not return to Makkah unless he crushed Muhammad. At Badr he sacrificed three camels to these goddesses. He drank wine and had the music of smglng girls to spur the Quraysh on to fight.

Abu Jahl was among the first to fall in the battle. His son Ikrimah saw him as spears pierced his body and heard him let out his last cry of agony. Ikrimah returned to Makkah leavmg behind the corpse of the Quraysh chieftain, his father. He wanted to bury him in Makkah but the crushing defeat they suffered made this impossible.

From that day, the fire of hatred burned even more fiercely in the heart of Ikrimah. Others whose fathers were killed at Badr, also became more hostile to Muhammad and his followers. This eventually led to the Battle of Uhud.

At Uhud Ikrimah was accompanied by his wife, Umm Hakim. She and other women stood behind the battle lines beating their drums, urging the Quraysh on to battle and upbraiding any horseman who felt inclined to flee.

Leading the right flank of the Quraysh was Khalid ibn Walid. On the left was Ikrimah ibn abi Jahl. The Quraysh inflicted heavy losses on the Muslims and felt that they had avenged themselves for the defeat at Badr. This was not, however, the end of the state of conflict.

At the battle of the Ditch, the Quraysh mushrikun besieged Madinah. It was a long siege. The resources and the patience of the mushrikun were wearing out. Ikrimah, feeling the strain of the siege, saw a place where the ditch, dug by the Muslims, was relatively narrow. With a gigantic effort, he managed to cross. A small group of Quraysh followed him. It was a foolhardy undertaking. One of them was immediately killed and it was only by turning on his heels that Ikrimah managed to save himself.

Nine years after his hijrah, the Prophet returned with thousands of his companions to Makkah. The Quraysh saw them approaching and decided to leave the way open for them because they knew that the Prophet had given instructions to his commanders not to open hostilities. Ikrimah and some others however went against the consen- sus of the Quraysh and attempted to block the progress of the Muslim forces. Khalid ibn al-Walid, now a Muslim, met and defeated them in a small engagement during which some of Ikrimah's men were killed and others who could, fled. Among those who escaped was Ikrimah himself.

Any standing or influence that Ikrimah may have had was now completely destroyed. The Prophet, peace be upon him, entered Makkah and gave a general pardon and amnesty to all Quraysh who entered the sacred mosque, or who stayed in their houses or who went to the house of Abu Sufyan, the paramount Quraysh leader. However he refused to grant amnesty to a few individuals whom he named. He gave orders that they should be killed even if they were found under the covering of the Ka'bah. At the top of this list was Ikrimah ibn abi Jahl. When Ikrimah learnt of this, he slipped out of Makkah in disguise and headed for the Yemen.

Umm Hakim, Ikrimah's wife, then went to the camp of the Prophet. With her was Hind bint Utbah, the wife of Abu Sufyan and the mother of Mu'awiyah, and about ten other women who wanted to pledge allegiance to the Prophet. At the camp, were two of his wives, his daughter Fatimah and some women of the Abdulmuttalib clan. Hind was the one who spoke. She was veiled and ashamed of what she had done to Hamzah, the Prophet's uncle, at the battle of Uhud.

"O Messenger of God," she said, "Praise be to God Who has made manifes1 the religion He has chosen for Himself. I beseech you out of the bonds of kinship to treat me well. I am now a believing woman who affirms the Truth of your mission." She then unveiled herself and said:

"I am Hind, the daughter of Utbah, O Messenger of God. "

"Welcome to you," replied the Prophet, peace be on him.

"By God, O Prophet" continued Hind, "there was not a house on earth that I wanted to destroy more than your house. Now, there is no house on earth that I so dearly wish to honour and raise in glory than yours."

Umm Hakim then got up and professed her faith in Islam and said:

"O Messenger of God, Ikrimah has fled from you to the Yemen out of fear that you would kill him. Grant him security and God will grant you security."

"He is secure," promised the Prophet.

Umm Hakim set out immediately in search of Ikrimah. Accompanying her was a Greek slave. When they had gone quite far on the way, he tried to seduce her but she managed to put him off until she came to a settlement of Arabs. She sought their help against him. They tied him up and kept him. Umm Hakim continued on her way until she finally found Ikrimah on the coast of the Red Sea in the region of Tihamah. He was negotiating transport with a Muslim seaman who was saying to him:

"Be pure and sincere and I will transport you."

"How can I be pure?" asked Ikrimah.

"Say, I testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah."

"I have fled from this very thing," said Ikrimah.

At this point, Umm Hakim came up to Ikrimah and said:

"O cousin, I have come to you from the most generous of men, the most righteous of men, the best of men . . . from Muhammad ibn Abdullah. I have asked him for an amnesty for you. This he has granted. So do not destroy yourself."

"Have you spoken to him?"

"Yes, I have spoken to him and he has granted you amnesty," she assured him and he returned with her. She told him about the attempt of their Greek slave to dishonour her and Ikrimah went directly to the Arab settlement where he lay bound and killed him.

At one of their resting places on their way back, Ikrimah wanted to sleep with his wife but she vehemently refused and said:

"I am a Muslimah and you are a lifushrik."

Ikrimah was totally taken aback and said, "Living without you and without your sleeping with me is an impossible situation."

As Ikrimah approached Makkah, the Prophet, peace be upon him, told his companions:

"Ikrimah ibn abi Jahl shall come to you as a believer and a muhajEr (a refugee). Do not insult his father. Insulting the dead causes grief to the living and does not reach the dead."

Ikrimah and his wife came up to where the Prophet was sitting. The Prophet got up and greeted him enthusiastically.

"Muhammad," said Ikrimah, "Umm Hakim has told me that you have granted me an amnesty."

"That's right," said the Prophet, "You are safe."

"To what do you invite?" asked Ikrimah.

"I invite you to testify that there is no god but Allah and that I am the servant of Allah and His messenger, to establish Prayer and pay the Zakat and carry out all the other obligations of Islam."

"By God," responded Ikrimah, "You have only called to what is true and you have only commanded that which is good. You lived among us before the start of your mission and then you were the most trustworthy of us in speech and the most righteous of us." Stretching forth his hands he said, "I testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is His servant and His messenger." The Prophet then instructed him to say, "I call on God and those present here to witness that I am a Muslim who is a Mujahid and a Muhajir". This Ikrimah repeated and then said:

"I ask you to ask God for forgiveness for me for all the hostility I directed against you and for whatever insults I expressed in your presence or absence." The Prophet replied with the prayer:

"O Lord, forgive him for all the hostility he directed against me and for all the expeditions he mounted wishing to put out Your light. Forgive him for whatever he has said or done in my presence or absence to dishonour me." Ikrimah's face beamed with happiness.

"By God, O messenger of Allah, I promise that whatever I have spent obstructing the way of God, I shall spend twice as much in His path and whatever battles I have fought against God's way I shall fight twice as much in His way."

From that day on, Ikrimah was committed to the mission of Islam as a brave horseman in the field of battle and as a steadfast worshipper who would spend much time in mosques reading the book of God. Often he would place the mushaf on his face and say, "The Book of my Lord, the words of my Lord" and he would cry from the fear of God.

Ikrimah remained true to his pledge to the Prophet. Whatever battles the Muslims engaged in thereafter, he participated in them and he was always in the vanguard of the army. At the battle of Yarmuk he plunged into the attack as a thirsty person after cold water on a blistering hot day. In one encounter in which the Muslims were under heavy attack, Ikrimah penetrated deep into the ranks of the Byzantines. Khalid ibn al-Walid rushed up to him and said, "Don't, Ikrimah. Your death will be a severe blow to the Muslims."

"Let us carry on, Khalid," said Ikrimah, now at the peak of motivation. "You had the privilege of being with the Messenger of God before this. As for myself and my father, we were among his bitterest enemies. Leave me now to atone for what I have done in the past. I fought the Prophet on many occasions. Shall I now flee from the Byzantines? This shall never be." Then calling out to the Muslims, he shouted, "Who shall pledge to fight until death?"

Four hundred Muslims including al-Harith ibn Hisham and Ayyash ibn Abi Rabiah responded to his call. They plunged into the battle and fought heroically without the leadership of Khalid ibn al-Walid. Their daring attack paved the way for a decisive Muslim victory.

When the battle was over, the bodies of three wounded mujahideen lay sprawled on the battleground, among them Al-Harith ibn Hisham, Ayyash ibn Abi Rabi'ah and Ikrimah ibn abi Jahl. Al-Harith called for water to drink. As it was brought to him, Ayyash looked at him and Harith said:

"Give it to Ayyash." By the time they got to Ayyash, he had just breathed his last. When they returned to al-Harith and Ikrimah, they found that they too had passed away.

The companions prayed that God may be pleased with them all and grant them refreshment from the spring of Kawthar in Paradise, a refreshment after which there is thirst no more.

Scanned from: "Companions of The Prophet", Vol.1, By: Abdul Wahid Hamid.

The fear of being Muslim in North America

After terror attacks in Paris and California, Muslims in North America are facing a sometimes violent backlash.
Omar Suleiman, a resident scholar at the Valley Ranch Islamic Center in Irving, Texas, was out of the country when he got word from his wife that their home address had just been published along with dozens of others by an anti-Islamic organisation.
The group, which had just held an armed protest outside the Islamic Center of Irving, got Suleiman's address because he registered to speak at a city council meeting back in March. He was asking the city council not to support a state bill that many in the Muslim community viewed as anti-Islamic.
Now, the address of the home he shares with his wife and two young children was all over the internet. Suleiman cut the trip short and flew back. Even though the list was eventually removed from the web, Suleiman and his wife were terrified.
"Hundreds of thousands of Islamophobes have our home address," he says. "It was a means of intimidation."

Anti-Muslim rhetoric is nothing new in North America. It was rampant in the Canadian election, when incumbent prime minister Stephen Harper made eliminating the niqab at naturalisation ceremonies a cornerstone of his campaign. It was also a factor long bubbling under the surface of the US presidential election - a poll in September found that one-third of Iowan Republicans think Islam should be outlawed.
But in the aftermath of terror attacks in Paris and in San Bernardino, California, anti-Islamic speech has risen to the surface of American political discourse, as evidenced by the latest proposal by presidential candidate Donald Trump that would bar any Muslim from entering the US.
"Our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people who believe only in jihad," wrote Trump in a press release.

While Trump has no power to enact such a ban, Muslims living in Canada and the US say his words and anti-Islamic rhetoric in general have a real impact on daily life.
"I've been doing this for decades and I've never seen this level of fear in the American Muslim community," says Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "People are really wondering what's going to happen to them."
Some mosques have actually hired security guards or recruited volunteers to keep a watchful eye on the doors and parking lot. But as a religious centre that is supposed to welcome everyone, these measures can only go so far.
Umar Lee, a professional expediter who is often on the road, goes to prayers at the local mosque in whatever city he happens to be in. He says for the first time, he's being asked to stand up and introduce himself to the rest of the congregation.
"I've never seen that at a mosque before and I've been to hundreds," he says.

There is also particular concern for Muslim women, who are more easily identified if they wear a hijab or niqab that covers the head.
In New York, a sixth grade girl was attacked on the playground and called a member of the Islamic State for wearing a hijab. One woman in Toronto was called a terrorist, punched in the stomach and face, and her hijab was wrenched off her head. Another woman in Toronto was violently shoved against a wall and told to go back to her country, even though she was not Muslim and was wearing a scarf over her ears because of the cold.
The attacks inspired the online movement #JeSuisHijabi, which encourages non-Muslim women to try on a hijab and meet in public spaces to talk about the meaning behind the headscarves.
"In trying times like these it is certainly more difficult to wear the hijab. With that said, are Canadian women going to stop wearing the hijab because of this? No," says Hena Malik, spokeswoman for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama`at, which started the campaign. "They're loyal to their country. They're certainly going to speak loudly against terrorism."
Muslims across the US and Canada say that anxiety in the community often starts on social media. One person shares a story of being spat on, cursed at, or even assaulted, and fear spreads.
Lee says he thinks that vigilance is important, but worries that mass hysteria could prevent Muslims from practising their religion.
"When you scare people away from going to the mosque and participating in the lives of the Muslim community you can spiritually harm people. You have people on the edge - they had a hardship or they're just returning to Islam... they really need Islam in their lives in that time," he says. "To scare that person is irresponsible."

Suleiman heard from so many men afraid to pray openly and women asking if it was alright to cover their headscarves with a hoodie or cap that he put out a video on YouTube to assure them from a scholarly perspective that removing the headscarf or skipping prayers is alright if they fear for their safety. But he also wanted to offer words of support and galvanise the Muslim community in Texas.
"It's important for Muslim men and Muslim women to maintain a strong identity," he says. "We can't let fear dictate our faith. We have to show resilience."
At the same time, he was dismayed to hear that yet another rally is being planned outside of the Irving mosque, this one is organised by the Klu Klux Klan.
"To hear the KKK is still around and organising something - it really, really, really just was a huge wake up call as to how far we're regressing with the rhetoric," he says.


Source : http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35044958

Islam in Russia

Islam is the second most widely professed religion in Russia. Islam is considered as one of Russia’s traditional religions, legally a part of Russian historical heritage.[2] According to a poll by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, 6% of respondents considered themselves Muslims.[3] According to Reuters, Muslim minorities make up a seventh (14%) of Russia's population.[4] Muslims constitute the nationalities in the North Caucasus residing between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea: Circassians, Balkars, Chechens, Ingush, Kabardin, Karachay, and numerous Dagestani peoples. Also, in the middle of the Volga Basin reside populations of Tatars and Bashkirs, the vast majority of whom are Muslims. There are over 5,000[5] registered religious Muslim organizations (divided into Sunni, Shia, Sufi ), which is over one sixth of the number of registered Russian Orthodox religious organizations of about 29,268 as of December 2006.[6]

History of Islam in Russia

In the mid 7th century AD, following the Muslim conquest of Persia, Islam penetrated into the Caucasus region, of which parts would later permanently become part of Russia.[7] The first people to become Muslims within current Russian territory, the Dagestani people (region of Derbent), converted after the Arab conquests in the 8th century. The first Muslim state in the future Russia lands was Volga Bulgaria[8] (922). The Tatars of the Khanate of Kazan inherited the population of believers from that state. Later most of the European and Caucasian Turkic peoples also became followers of Islam.[9]

The Tatars of the Crimean Khanate, the last remaining successor to the Golden Horde, continued to raid Southern Russia and burnt down parts of Moscow in 1571.[10] Until the late 18th century, Crimean Tatars maintained a massive slave-trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East, exporting about 2 million slaves from Russia and Ukraine over the period 1500–1700.[11]

From the early 16th-century up to including the course of the 19th century, all of Transcaucasia and southern Dagestan was ruled by various successive Iranian empires (the Safavids, Afsharids, and the Qajars), and their geo-political and ideological neighbouring arch-rivals on the other hand, the Ottoman Turks. In the respective areas they ruled, in both the North Caucasus and South Caucasus, Shia Islam and Sunni Islam spread, resulting in a fast and steady conversion of many more ethnic Caucasian peoples in adjacent territories.

The period from the Russian conquest of Kazan in 1552 to the ascension of Catherine the Great in 1762 featured systematic Russian repression of Muslims through policies of exclusion and discrimination - as well as the destruction of Muslim culture by the elimination of outward manifestations of Islam such as mosques.[12] The Russians initially demonstrated a willingness in allowing Islam to flourish as Muslim clerics were invited into the various regions to preach to the Muslims, particularly the Kazakhs, whom the Russians viewed with contempt.[13][14] However, Russian policy shifted toward weakening Islam by introducing pre-Islamic elements of collective consciousness.[15] Such attempts included methods of eulogizing pre-Islamic historical figures and imposing a sense of inferiority by sending Kazakhs to highly élite Russian military institutions.[15] In response, Kazakh religious leaders attempted to bring religious fervor by espousing pan-Turkism, though many[quantify] were persecuted as a result.[16]

While total expulsion (as practised in other Christian nations such as Spain, Portugal and Sicily) was not feasible to achieve a homogeneous Russian-Orthodox population, other policies such as land grants and the promotion of migration by other Russian and non-Muslim populations into Muslim lands displaced many Muslims, making them minorities in places such as some parts of the South Ural region and encouraging emigration to other parts such as the Ottoman Turkey and neighboring Persia, and almost annihilating the Circassians, Crimean Tatars, and various Muslims of the Caucasus. The Russian army rounded up people, driving Muslims from their villages to ports on the Black Sea, where they awaited ships provided by the neighboring Ottoman Empire. The explicit Russian goal involved expelling the groups in question from their lands.[17] They were given a choice as to where to be resettled: in the Ottoman Empire, in Persia, or in Russia far from their old lands. The Russo-Caucasian War ended with the signing of loyalty oaths by Circassian leaders on 2 June [O.S. 21 May] 1864. Afterwards, the Ottoman Empire offered to harbour the Circassians who did not wish to accept the rule of a Christian monarch, and many emigrated to Anatolia (the heart of the Ottoman Empire) and ended up in modern Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Iraq and Kosovo. Many other Caucasian Muslims ended up in neighboring Iran - sizeable numbers of Shia Lezgins, Azerbaijanis, Muslim Georgians, Kabardins, and Laks.[18] Various Russian, Caucasus, and Western historians agree on the figure of c. 500,000 inhabitants of the highland Caucasus being deported by Russia in the 1860s. A large proportion of them died in transit from disease. Those that remained loyal to Russia were settled into the lowlands, on the left-bank of the Kuban' River. The trend of Russification has continued at different paces in the rest of Tsarist and Soviet periods, so that[citation needed] as of 2014 more Tatars lived outside the Republic of Tatarstan than inside it.[9]

Islam in the Soviet Union

Communist rule oppressed and suppressed Islam, like other religions in the Soviet Union.Many mosques (for some estimates,[19] more than 83% in Tatarstan) were closed. For example, the Märcani Mosque was the only acting mosque in Kazan at that[when?] time.

World War II

Many thousands of Russian Muslims served and fought in the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany.[20]

Today

There was much evidence of official conciliation toward Islam in Russia in the 1990s. The number of Muslims allowed to make pilgrimages to Mecca increased sharply after the embargo of the Soviet era ended in 1991.[21] In 1995 the newly established Union of Muslims of Russia, led by Imam Khatyb Mukaddas of Tatarstan, began organizing a movement aimed at improving inter-ethnic understanding and ending Russians' lingering misconception of Islam. The Union of Muslims of Russia is the direct successor to the pre-World War I Union of Muslims, which had its own faction in the Russian Duma. The post-Communist union formed a political party, the Nur All-Russia Muslim Public Movement, which acts in close coordination with Muslim imams to defend the political, economic, and cultural rights of Muslims and other minorities. The Islamic Cultural Center of Russia, which includes a madrassa (religious school), opened in Moscow in 1991. In the 1990s, the number of Islamic publications has increased. Among them are few magazines in Russian, namely: "Ислам" (transliteration: Islam), "Эхо Кавказа" (Ekho Kavkaza) and "Исламский вестник" (Islamsky Vestnik), and the Russian-language newspaper "Ассалам" (Assalam), and "Нуруль Ислам" (Nurul Islam), which are published in Makhachkala, Dagestan.

Kazan has a large Muslim population (probably the second after Moscow urban group of the Muslims and the biggest indigenous group in Russia) and is home to the Russian Islamic University in Kazan, Tatarstan. Education is in Russian and Tatar. In Dagestan there are number of Islamic Universities and madrassas, notable among them are: Dagestan Islamic University, Institute of Theology and International Relations, whose rector Maksud Sadikov was assassinated on 8 June 2011.[22]

Talgat Tadzhuddin was the Chief Mufti of Russia. Since Soviet times, the Russian government has divided Russia into a number of Muslim Spiritual Directorates. In 1980 Talgat Tazhuddin was made Mufti of the European USSR and Siberia Division. Since 1992 he has headed the central or combined Muslim Spiritual Directorate of all of Russia.

Putin has said that [Orthodox Christianity] is much closer to Islam than Catholicism is.[23][24][25][26]

Putin has sought to harness and direct Muslim anger over the Charlie Hebdo cartoons against the west.[27] Putin is believed to have backed protests by Muslims in Russia against Charlie Hebdo and the west.[28]

Putin has allowed the de facto implementation of Sharia law in Chechnya by Ramzan Kadyrov, including polygamy and enforced veiling.[29]

A chain e-mail spread a hoax speech attributed to Putin which called for tough assimilation policies on immigrants, no evidence of any such speech can be found in Russian media or Duma archives.[30][31][32][33][34][35]

Demographics

The majority of Muslims in Russia adhere to the Sunni branch of Islam. About 5% are Shia Muslims. There is also an active presence of Ahmadi Muslims.[36] In a few areas, notably Dagestan and Chechnya, there is a tradition of Sunni Sufism, which is represented by Naqshbandi and Shadhili schools, whose spiritual master Said Afandi al-Chirkawi receives hundreds of visitor daily.[37] The Azeris have also historically and still currently been nominally followers of Shi'a Islam, as their republic split off from the Soviet Union, significant number of Azeris immigrated to Russia in search of work.

Notable Russian converts to Islam include Vyacheslav Polosin,[38] Vladimir Khodov and Alexander Litvinenko, a defector from Russian intelligence, who converted on his deathbed.[39][40]

Hajj

A record 18,000 Russian Muslim pilgrims from all over the country attended the Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia in 2006.[41] In 2010, at least 20,000 Russian Muslim pilgrims attended the Hajj, as Russian Muslim leaders sent letters to the King of Saudi Arabia requesting that the Saudi visa quota be raised to at least 25,000-28,000 visas for Muslims.[42] Due to overwhelming demand from Russian Muslims, on 5 July 2011, Muftis requested President Dmitry Medvedev's assistance in increasing the allocated by Saudi Arabia pilgrimage quota in Vladikavkaz.[43] The III International Conference on Hajj Management attended by some 170 delegates from 12 counties was held in Kazan from 7 – 9 July 2011.[44]

Language controversies

For centuries, the Tatars constituted the only Muslim ethnic group in European Russia, with Tatar language being the only language used in their mosques, a situation which saw rapid change over the course of the 20th century as a large number of Caucasian and central Asian Muslims migrated to central Russian cities and began attending Tatar-speaking mosques, generating pressure on the imams of such mosques to begin using Russian.[45][46] This problem is evident even within Tatarstan itself, where Tatars constitute a majority.[47]

Islam in Moscow

Moscow has 1 million Muslim residents and up to 1.5 million more Muslim migrant workers. The city has permitted the existence of four mosques.[48] The mayor of Moscow claims that four mosques are sufficient for the population.[49] The city's economy "could not manage without them," he said. There are currently 8,000 mosque in Russia.[50]

Abu Hurayrah r.a

"An Abi Hurayrata, radiyallahu anhu, qal.' qala rasul Allahi, sallallahu alayhi wa sailam..." Through this phrase millions of Muslims from the early history of Islam to the present have come to be familiar with the name Abu Hurayrah. In speeches and lectures, in Friday khutbahs and seminars, in the books of hadith and sirah, fiqh and ibadah, the n ame Abu Hurayrah is mentioned in this fashion: "On the authority of Abu Hurayrah, may God be pleased with him who said: The Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, said... ". Through his Prodigious efforts, hundreds of ahadith or sayings of the Prophet were transmitted to later generations. His is the foremost name in the roll of hadith transmitters. Next to him comes the names of such companions as Abdullah the son of Umar, Anas the son of Malik, Umm al-Mumininin Aishah, Jabir ibn Abdullah and Abu Said al-Khudri all of whom transmitted over a thousand sayings of the Prophet. Abu Hurayrah became a Muslim at the hands of at-Tufayl ibn Amr the chieftain of the Daws tribe to which he belonged. The Daws lived in the region of Tihamah which stretches along the coast of the Red Sea in southern Arabia. When at-Tufayl returned to his village after meeting the Prophet and becoming a Muslim in the early years of his mission, Abu Hurayrah was one of the first to respond to his call. He was unlike the majority of the Daws who remained stubborn in their old beliefs for a long time.

When at-Tufayl visited Makkah again, Abu Hurayrah accompanied him. There he had the honor and privilege of meeting the noble Prophet who asked him: "What is your name?" "Abdu Shams - Servant of a Sun," he replied. "Instead, let it be Abdur-Rahman - the Servant of the Beneficent Lord," said the Prophet. "Yes, Abdur-Rahman (it shall be) O Messenger of God," he replied. However, he continued to be known as Abu Hurayrah, "the kitten man", literally "the father of a kitten" because like the Prophet he was fond of cats and since his childhood often had a cat to play with. Abu Hurayrah stayed in Tihamah for several years and it was only at the beginning of the seventh year of the Hijrah that he arrived in Madinah with others of his tribe. The Prophet had gone on a campaign to Khaybar. Being destitute, Abu Hurayrah took up h is place in the Masjid with other of the Ahl as-Suffah. He was single, without wife or child. With him however was his mother who was still a mushrik. He longed, and prayed, for her to become a Muslim but she adamantly refused. One day, he invited her to have faith in God alone and follow His Prophet but she uttered some words about the Prophet which saddened him greatly. With tears in his eyes, he went to the noble Prophet who said to him:

"What makes you cry, O Abu Hurayrah?" "I have not let up in inviting my mother to Islam but she has always rebuffed me. Today, I invited her again and I heard words from her which I do not like. Do make supplication to God Almighty to make the heart of Abu Hurayrah's mother incline to Isl am." The Prophet responded to Abu Hurayrah's request and prayed for his mother. Abu Hurayrah said: "I went home and found the door closed. I heard the splashing of water and when I tried to enter my mother said: "Stay where you are, O Abu Hurayrah." And after putting on her clothes, she said, "Enter!" I entered and she said: "I testify that there is no god but Allah and I testify that Muhammad is His Servant and His Messenger." "I returned to the Prophet, peace be on him, weeping with joy just as an hour before I had gone weeping from sadness and said: "I have good news, O Messenger of Allah. God has responded to your prayer and guided the mother of Abu Hurayrah to Islam." Abu Hurayrah loved the Prophet a great deal and found favor with him. He was never tired of looking at the Prophet whose face appeared to him as having all the radiance of the sun and he was never tired of listening to him. Often he would praise God for h is good fortune and say: "Praise be to God Who has guided Abu Hurayrah to Islam." Praise be to God Who has taught Abu Hurayrah the Quran."

"Praise be to God who has bestowed on Abu Hurayrah the companionship of Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace." On reaching Madinah, Abu Hurayrah set his heart on attaining knowledge. Zayd ibn Thabit the notable companion of the Prophet reported : "While Abu Hurayrah and I and another friend of mine were in the Masjid praying to God Almighty and performing dhikr to Him, the Messenger of God appeared. He came towards us and sat among us. We became silent and he said: "Carry on with what you were d oing." "So my friend and I made a supplication to God before Abu Hurayrah did and the Prophet began to say Ameen to our dua. "Then Abu Hurayrah made a supplication saying: "O Lord, I ask You for what my two companions have asked and I ask You for knowledge which will not be forgotten." "The Prophet, peace be on him, said: 'Ameen.' "We then said: 'And we ask Allah for knowledge which will not be forgotten, and the Prophet replied: 'The Dawsi youth has asked for this before you." "With his formidable memory, Abu Hurayrah set out to memorize in the four years that he spent with the Prophet, the gems of wisdom that emanated from his lips. He realized that he had a great gift and he set about to use it to the full in the service of I slam. He had free time at his disposal. Unlike many of the Muhajirin he did not busy himself' in the market-places, with buying and selling. Unlike many of the Ansar, he had no land to cultivate nor crops to tend. He stayed with the Prophet in Madinah and went with him on journeys and expeditions.

Many companions were amazed at the number of hadith he had memorized and often questioned him on when he had heard a certain hadith and under what circumstances. Once Marwan ibn al-Hakam wanted to test Abu Hurayrah's power of memory. He sat with him in one room and behind a curtain he placed a scribe, unknown to Abu Hurayrah, and ordered him to write down whatever Abu Hurayrah said. A year later, Marwan called Ab u Hurayrah again and asked him to recall the same ahadith which the scribe had recorded. It was found that he had forgotten not a single word. Abu Hurayrah was concerned to teach and transmit the ahadith he had memorized and knowledge of Islam in general. It is reported that one day he passed through the suq of Madinah and naturally saw people engrossed in the business of buying and selling. "How feeble are you, O people of Madinah!" he said. "What do you see that is feeble in us, Abu Hurayrah?" they asked. "The inheritance of the Messenger of God, peace be on him, is being distributed and you remain here! Won't you go and take your portion?"

"Where is this, O Abu Hurayrah?" they asked. "In the Masjid," he replied. Quickly they left. Abu Hurayrah waited until they returned. When they saw him, they said: "O Abu Hurayrah, we went to the Masjid and entered and we did not see anything being distributed." "Didn't you see anyone in the Masjid?" he asked. "O yes, we saw some people performing Salat, some people reading the Quran and some people discussing about what is halal and what is haram." "Woe unto you," replied Abu Hurayrah," that is the inheritance of Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace." Abu Hurayrah underwent much hardship and difficulties as a result of his dedicated search for knowledge. He was often hungry and destitute. He said about himself: "When I was afflicted with severe hunger, I would go to a companion' of the Prophet and asked him about an ayah of the Quran and (stay with him) learning it so that he would take me with him to his house and give food. "

One day, my hunger became so severe that I placed a stone on my stomach. I then sat down in the path of the companions. Abu Bakr passed by and I asked him about an ayah of the Book of God. I only asked him so that he would invite me but he didn't. "Then Umar ibn al-Khattab passed by me and I asked him about an ayah but he also did not invite me. Then the Messenger of God, peace be on him, passed by and realized that I was hungry and said: "Abu Hurayrah!" "At your command" I replied and followed him until we entered his house. He found a bowl of milk and asked his family: "From where did you get this?" "Someone sent it to you" they replied. He then said to me: "O Abu Hurayrah, go to the Ahl as-Suffah and invite them." Abu Hurayrah did as he was told and they all drank from the milk.

The time came of course when the Muslims were blessed with great wealth and material goodness of every description. Abu Hurayrah eventually got his share of wealth. He had a comfortable home, a wife and child. But this turn of fortune did not change his personality. Neither did he forget his days of destitution. He would "I grew up as an orphan and I emigrated as a poor and indigent person. I used to take food for my stomach from Busrah bint Ghazwan. I served people when they returned from journeys and l ed their camels when they set out. Then God caused me to marry her (Busrah). So praise be to God who has strengthened his religion and made Abu Hurayrah an imam." (This last statement is a reference to the time when he became governor of Madinah.) Much of Abu Hurayrah's time would be spent in spiritual exercises and devotion to God. Qiyam al-Layl staying up for the night in prayer and devotion - was a regular practice of his family including his wife and his daughter. He would stay up for a third o f the night, his wife for another third and his daughter for a third. In this way, in the house of Abu Hurayrah no hour of the night would pass without ibadah, dhikr and Salat.

During the caliphate of Umar, Umar appointed him as governor of Bakrain. Umar was very scrupulous about the type of persons whom he appointed as governors. He was always concerned that his governors should live simply and frugally and not acquire much wea lth even though this was through lawful means. In Bahrain, Abu Hurayrah became quite rich. Umar heard of this and recalled him to Madinah. Umar thought he had acquired his wealth through unlawful means and questioned him about where and how he had acquired such a fortune. Abu Hurayrah replied: "From b reeding horses and gifts which I received." "Hand it over to the treasury of the Muslims," ordered Umar. Abu Hurayrah did as he was told and raised his hands to the heavens and prayed: "O Lord, forgive the Amir al-Muminin." Subsequently, Umar asked him to become governor once again but he declined. Umar asked him why he refused and he said: "So that my honor would not be besmirched, my wealth taken and my back beaten."

And he added: "And I fear to judge without knowledge and speak without wisdom." Throughout his life Abu Hurayrah remained kind and courteous to his mother. Whenever he wanted to leave home, he would stand at the door of her room and say: As-salaamu alaykum, yaa ummataah, wa rahrnatullahi wa barakatuhu, peace be on you, mother, and th e mercy and blessings of God." She would reply: "Wa alayka-s salaam, yaa bunayya, wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu - And on you be peace, my son, and the mercy and blessings of God." Often, he would also say: "May God have mercy on you as you cared for me wh en I was small," and she would reply: "May God have mercy on you as you delivered me from error when I was old." Abu Hurayrah always encouraged other people to be kind and good to their parents. One day he saw two men walking together, one older than the other. He asked the younger one: "What is this man to you?" "My father," the person replied. "Don't call him by his name. Don't walk in front of him and don't sit before him," advised Abu Hurayrah. Muslims owe a debt of gratitude to Abu Hurayrah for helping to preserve and transmit the valuable legacy of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace. He died in the year 59 AH when he was seventy-eight years old.

source :http://www.islamforlife.co.uk/sahaba.htm#hurayrah