Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Update on Habib Umar bin Hafiz talk

Bismillah wassolatu wassalaamu 'ala Rasulillah wa 'ala aalihi wassohbihi waman waalah.Amma ba'du,

Dear brothers and sisters in Islam,

Assalamu'alaikum wr wb,

It's time again for a renowned 'aleem from the land of abundance scholars and pious people to return to Singapore Darus Samad. He is, non other than al-Habib as-Sayyid 'Umar bin Muhammad bin Salim bin Hafidz.

Come and appreciate the recitation of adh-Dhiyaaul Laami' .
The poetic eulogy in remembrance of Rasulullah SAW arranged by al-Habib himself.

Listen and learn from the learned
The Lecture entitled "Kecemerlangan Masyarakat Islam. Bagaimana? Dengan apa?"

This email is my personal invitation to you and your family, on behalf of Masjid Al-Istighfar (New Venue! Previously at Masjid Al-Amin) , to grace the majlis.
8th February 2008. Majlis will start after solat Maghrib.

Insya-Allah, dinner will be served. (For those who wishes to sponsor the dinner for 500+ jemaah, please do not hesistate to contact Ust Suhaimi Fauzi at imam@alistighfar.mosque.org.sg or at 6 584 3722. May Allah multiplied our rizq!)

Check the event poster! Wassalamu'alaikum wr wb."May Allah illuminate my heart and your heart with the Lights of Certainty
MUHAMMAD MAZDIUKY BIN MD ISHAK
Imam Executive Masjid Al-Amin& Naib Qadhi

Habib Umar bin Hafiz is back in Singapore


Alhamdulilah, Habib Umar bin Hafiz a scholar from Hadramawt, Yemen will be coming to our beloved country, Singapore again. He is the principal of Darul Mustafa. Here are the information of the events. All are welcome!

All the lectures will be delivered by Habib Umar Bin Hafiz in Arabic with intermittent translations to the Malay language by his student.

Date: 6 Feb 2008
Day:Wednesday
Hikmah Di Sebalik Musibah
Venue: Masjid Hj Muhd Salleh (Maqam Habib Noh)
Time: 12.45 hrs
(The lecture will be before and after solat Zuhur)


Umati!Umati!Menjawab Seruan Rasulluah s.aw.
Venue: Masjid Abdul Aleem Siddique
Time:7pm
(The event will begin after the solat mahgrib with Mawlid)


Date: 7 Feb 2008
Day: Thursday
Renungan dan Meingati Allah swt
Venue: Masjid al Mukminin
Time: 4pm


Penyakit Penyakit Hati
Venue: Masjid Ba'alawi
Time: 7pm
(The event begins after solat maghrib with recitation of Ratib al Attas)


Date: 8 Feb 2008
Day: Friday
Solat Jumaat Bersama Habib Umar
Venue: Masjid al Abdul Razak
Time:12.45
(Habib Umar will be giving short lectures before his Friday sermon)


Date: 9 Feb 2008
Day: Saturday
Patience- Attribute of a Believer
Venue: al Wehdah, The Arab Association (no 11 lorong 37, Geylang)
Time: 7pm

*Habib Umar will be performing solat Subuh and having short talks at Masjid al Abdul Razak from 6 Feb to 10 Feb 2008.

For more information and enquiries, you can call bro Nassir 63460153

Monday, January 28, 2008

The ‘Dancing’ of the Sufis


By Shaykh Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Ajibah al-Hasani
Released by www.marifah.net 1428 H

Dancing is divided into three categories:

1. The forbidden.

2. The permissible.

3. The recommended.

1. The forbidden category is the dancing of the common with ladies and youths present. This can lead to spoiling and uncontrolled lower natures, and satanic selves and so on. Its purpose is to show off and to exhibit a state which is not real. This is also forbidden. This is why certain people have said that dancing is forbidden.

2. The permissible category of dancing is the dancing done by the right-acting ones and the fuqara without ecstasy or finding. They do it as a relaxation to the self and energy for their hearts, fulfilling the conditions of time and place and the brothers. No women participate in it, nor youths. This is permissible, and it does not call for prohibition, because the causes of forbidding dancing are what was mentioned before. The latter case is free of these conditions. If this dancing is compared to what the Samiris did when they worshipped the cow, it is seen that their dancing was forbidden because theirs was spoiled. Their purpose was to glorify the calf, and to be happy with it.

This is kufr. If their dancing had been free of that it would not have been forbidden for them. It is confirmed that Ja’far ibn Abu Talib r.a. danced in the presence of the Prophet s.a.w. when he said to him,

“You resemble me in my creation and my behaviour.”

1Excerpted from al-futuhat al-ilahiyya sharh al-mabahith al-asliyya by Sidi Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Ajibah al-Hasani(died 1224 Hijrah)

2 Imam Nawawi said: “Dancing is not unlawful, unless it is languid, like the movements of the effeminate. And it is permissible to speak and to sing poetry, unless it satirizes someone, is obscene, or alludes to a particular woman” (minhaj al-talibin wa `umdat al-muttaqin.

Cairo 1338/1920. Reprint. Cairo: Mustafa al-Babi al-Halabi, n.d., 152)

3 `Ali . said: I visited the Prophet with Ja`far (ibn Abi Talib) and Zayd (ibn Haritha). The Prophet said to Zayd: “You are my freedman” (anta mawlay), where upon Zayd began to hop on one leg around the Prophet (hajala). The Prophet then said to Ja`far: “You resemble me in my creation and my manners”,

This was mentioned by Shaykh Sanusi in his musrat al -faqir.

Ibn Layun at-Tujibi said,

“As for dancing in the mosque, it is in the sahih muslim collection from A`isha . who said, ‘An army came from Ethiopia beating drums on the day of the feast in the mosque. The Prophet s.a.w. invited me and I put my palms on his shoulders and watched them play.’”

Ibn ‘Aynia said that zafaf’ was to dance. So it is confirmed that dancing is permissible. If it was forbidden in its essence, it would not have been done in the presence of the Messenger of Allah s.a.w.

3. The category of dancing which is recommended is the dancing of the Sufis, the people of taste and state, whether they are in ecstasy or seeking ecstasy, whether that is in the presence of the dhikr, or in sama
.
There is no doubt that the cure of the heart of forgetfulness and gathering with Allah swt is sought by whatever means there are, as long as they are not forbidden with a clear and definite declaration of them as forbidden. We have seen the speech of al-Junayd when he was asked about
sama’

Al-Fasi said in his sharh al-hissn from [Shaykh al-Islam] al-Suyuti Q.s that he [al-Suyuti] said:

How can one condemn making dhikr while standing, or standing while making dhikr, when Allah . says, “. . .those who invoke Allah standing, sitting, and upon their sides” 4. And A`isha r.a.h. said, ‘The Prophet . used to invoke Allah at all of his times.’ 5 And if dancing is added to this standing, it may not be condemned, as it is of the joy of spiritual vision and ecstasy, and the Hadith exists 6 that Ja`far ibn Abi Talib r.a. danced in front of the Prophet . when the Prophet . told him, ‘You resemble me in looks and in character,’ Dancing from the happiness he felt from being thus addressed, and the Prophet did not condemn him for doing so, this being a basis for the legal acceptability of the Sufis dancing from the joys of the ecstasies they experience.”

7 whereupon Ja`far began to hop behind Zayd. The Prophet then said to me: “You are part of me and I am part of you whereupon I began to hop behind Ja`far.”’ Imam Ahmad related it in his musnad (1:108) and Ahmad Muhammad Shakir declared it sound (sahih) in his Riyadh, 1949 edition; it is related also by `Uqayli, Abu Nu`aym from Jabir, and Ibn Sa`d in his tabaqat with a sound chain to Muhammad al-Baqir. [Shaikh GF Haddad in his recently released Sunna Notes says it is a ‘fair narration from ‘Ali by Imam Ahmad’]

4 Qur’an 3:191

5 Sahih Muslim, 1.282: 373

6 In many sources, such as musnad al-imam ahmad, 1.108, with a hasan chain of transmission.

7 Al-hawi lil fatawi. 2 vols. Cairo 1352/1933–34. Reprint. Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al `Ilmiyya, 1403/1983,

Among these people are great Imams, and one of them was the Shaykh of Islam, ‘Izzuddin ibn `Abdul Salam, as is mentioned in the ihya 8.

This is also confirmed by the hadith reported from A`isha r.a.h, and the people from Ethiopia who were dancing. The Prophet s.a.w , said to her, “Would you like to look at the dance of the Ethiopians?” Ibn Zakri mentioned it in the commentary of the nasihaj.

It is reported from previous times, from both the east and the west that the Sufis used to gather to remember Allah and that they used to dance. It is not reported that any of the worthy scholars denied them. I have seen in Fez, in the Zawiyya of as-Siqilli, a group who used to do dhikr and dance from the `asr on the day of jumu`a until the isha, with a lot of scholars around. No one denied what they were doing. It has reached me that our Shaykh, the Shaykh of the group Sidi at-Tawdi ibn Suda used to be present with them sometimes. He did not deny anything to the fuqara, except someone who was a cold imitator or an argumentative competitor.

8 It is authentically reported that al-`Izz ibn `Abdul Salam “attended the sama’ and danced in states of ecstasy”. Stated by Ibn al-`Imad, shadharat al-dhahab 5:302; Ibn Shakir al-Kutabi, fawat al-wafayat 1:595; al-Yafi`i, mir`at al-jinan 4:154; al-Nabhani, jami` karamat al-awliya 2:71; Abu al-Sa`adat, taj al-ma`arif p. 250.Imam Ibn Hajar Al-Haytami also mentions “it is permissible to stand and dance during gatherings of remembrance [of Allah] and audition according to a group of great scholars, among them being Shaykh al-Islam Ibn `Abdul Salam.” (fatawa hadithiyya, p. 298)

Photo: Whirling Dervishes

Monday, January 21, 2008

Lovers

The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.


Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,
they're in each other all along.

Mawlana Rumi
Translator: Coleman Barks

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The day of Ashura is here soon.....insha'Allah

I did not realise that it soon will be Ashura this Saturday, till a friend of mine called me and enquired as to what I will be doing on this day. I was dumbfounded as I did not realise that time has passed so fast and it is already Ashura. I feel that I have been left behind whilst time moves swiftly. Usually I would spend my time by myself on this special day. Beats me why I spend it all alone and I am still trying to understand. Yes! Its a Ashura day and I spend time alone. My mother loves the Ashura porridge that some friends would cook and some mosques offer.

may Allah bless you and forgive me
Khalid Ajmain

Friends along the journey...

Recently I made a new friend who is an inspiration to me. I always need someone who will make me a better person than before and perhaps she did make me a better person without realising it. ALLAH sends us all friends along our journey in life in order to improve ourselves through lessons learnt from them. There may be complications along the way but nevertheless, I have never met a friend like her before as she simply inspires me everyday in whatever I do. Praise be to ALLAH for his mercy and love in allowing us to meet and know each other and for our unique identities to communicate issues that help us improve our journey in this world.

May Allah bless her and forgive me
Khalid Ajmain