A colleague of mine released an app a little while ago call e-Supplications (e-Supp) on the iOS App Store.
They were frustrated with the supplication app they had been using and how:
a) it hadn't been updated in YEARS,
b) it didn't have the option to search for supplications, and
c) it didn't have the option to save favourites.
He checked the app store and found a nice looking app, but upon trying it was HORRIFIED to discover his supplications were interrupted (at random) by pop up ads. The first one was for McDonalds. I'm not kidding. A supplication app, he thought, should NOT have ads. Either charge a price for it to recoup the cost of making it/donate all proceeds to charity, or make it free.
So, he did just that.
The app can be found here, please give it a try and leave a review! He asks that if you like the app, give a small donation in his name to the charity or masjid of your choice!
Showing posts with label hadith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hadith. Show all posts
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Friday, March 30, 2012
Dua can Change Destiny
It's a fundamental part of our religion to believe in fate and pre-destiny. This can be a good thing, because when we get into fender benders with our parents cars we can say "It's not my fault, it was the will of Allah! It was going to happen anyway!" but it can be a bad thing because it can leave us feeling helpless.
Someone very close to me was telling me though, that dua (supplication) is the only thing that can actually alter destiny. A few days later, I got my daily hadith email (courtesy of Adaptive Solutions: http://dailyhadith.adaptivesolutionsinc.com/) which actually discussed this topic, and it did so in the clearest way possible:
"Some people wonder what the use may be of making Duas. They say that since everything is preordained, and the good and bad written in one’s Taqdeer (Qismet/preordainment) will come to one anyway, why make Dua? But Taqdeer should be understood as a vault, a very big safe deposit box. In that vault is one’s Paradise and Hell, good and bad. When we make Dua we ask for the good things in the vault to be given to us.
Imaam Ibn al-Qayyim said to invoke Taqdeer to counter Taqdeer. Thus, if you have an accident, then ask Allah for recovery from it. Since Allah (subhana wa ta’ala) has kept every good thing in store for us, He gets angry if we don’t ask Him for any of those good things. To not ask Allah (subhana wa ta’ala) for things is to be ungrateful towards Him.
We can understand this from our own experience: Suppose you gather together all the things your children would love to have. Then you ask your children if they would like to receive these wonderful treats you got for them. Some of your children run to you happily saying “Yes, please!” and some of your children keep sitting indifferently saying “Well, if you got them for us, you’ll give them to us anyway.” Which attitude of your children would you be more pleased with?
Ask for the good that Allah (subhana wa ta’ala) has deposited in the vault for you, and ask Him to keep the bad in it away from you."
I'm the kind of guy that needs some more hadith to back a grand idea like this up though, so a quick google search took me to AlQuranClasses.com. This appears to be very neat and tidy, Muslimah run website that seems worth checking out, but they had an article similar to this one, but they've got references. (Usually I go to searchtruth.com, but their search wasn't yielding any results, so these hadith may not be in those books.)
Anyway, their article can be found at:
and the supporting hadith they have are:
The Prophet (Peace be upon Him) said: “Nothing can change the Divine decree except Dua.”(Narrated by Ahmad, 5/677; Ibn Maajah, 90; al-Tirmidhi, 139. Classed as hasan by al-Albaani in Saheeh al-Jaami’, 76687. See also al-Saheehah, 145)
It was narrated from Ibn ‘Umar (may Allaah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (Peace be upon him) said: “Du’aa’ may be of benefit with regard to what has already happened or what has not yet happened, so adhere to Du’aa’, O slaves of Allaah.” Narrated by al-Tirmidhi (3548)
The Prophet (Peace be upon Him) said: “No precaution can protect against the decree of Allaah. Du’aa’ is beneficial with regard to what has been decreed and what has not been decreed. The du’aa’ meets the calamity that has been decreed and wrestles with it, until the Day of Resurrection.” (Narrated by al-Tabaraani, 2/800 (33). Al-Albaani said in Saheeh al-Jaami’, 7739, (it is) hasan).
As a bit of a disclaimer, you can't change destiny in the sense of going against God's will. At the end of the day, something is going to happen to you, and it'll be what God has written, dua is just a request for timeline re-evaluation, and to have what WAS written changed to something else.
So, there you are! Keep calm and make dua! :)
Friday, March 23, 2012
Assad 2012
A lot of people say these videos don't help, that watching a video won't change anything, and that the people who do want to cause a change go out and do it and that spreading awareness won't help because it won't inspire the people who are apathetic.
There is a hadith by Prophet Muhammad (SAW) that indicates there is some benefit to sharing these activist videos:
"If one of you sees something wrong, let him change it with his hand; if he cannot, then with his tongue; if he cannot, then with his heart and this is the weakest faith."
With that, please watch this video about the massacres in Syria:
Of course it's better to do something, but if you're not going to go out and protest/donate/pass around petitions, then at least hate what this horrible man has done and share this video with others.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Hadith on Flower Giving
"He who is presented with a flower should not reject it, for it is light to carry and pleasant in odor." (Muslim)
I quite like this hadith :)
I quite like this hadith :)
Friday, November 25, 2011
Geektool Daily Hadith (Mac only, sorry)
I was going to do an article on a hadith I read, but then I thought, why give my readers a fish when I can teach them how to fish!
I recently became interested in a Macintosh tool called Geektool. It's a delightful little program that runs in the background and puts one of 3 things on your desktop:
1) the output from a script (i.e it'll execute a small program and display the result)
2) text from a file
3) a picture from a folder
and using just these three things, people have come up with the most amazing desktops! Just take a look at these!
more available here: http://smokingapples.com/software/15-geektool-desktop-inspirations-for-the-weekend/
It's customizable and pretty straightforward, but most people have difficulty writing the script ones. In this article, I'll teach you how to turn a twitter feed into an rss feed and using some programming, display it on your desktop using Geektool :)
1. Download Geektool: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/geektool/id456877552?mt=12
2. Install it, it'll show up as a preference pane.
3. This is the twitter feed we'll be using as our source of hadiths:
http://twitter.com/#!/DailyHadith
unfortunately, none of the programs on your mac can just take the text, so we have to convert it to an RSS feed (a type of simplistic, list approach to getting information from websites) EVEN MORE UNFORTUNATELY, the option to do this from this Twitter feed has been removed, so we have to use another website. I've already done that for you so the RSS feed you'll need will be:
feed://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=dailyhadith
4. Make a folder on your desktop called "Geektool Desktops" and within that folder, make another one called "Common". (just do it, because that's where mine is and it makes everything easier. You can probably figure out what to change if you want to move your folder somewhere else :))
5. Now, we need to write a bit of code to automatically download the latest hadith, and save it to a text file! So, open "Automator" on your mac. If you go to the little magnifying glass in the very top corner of your screen and start typing "Automator" it'll show up. It looks like a little robot holding a tube.
6. Choose to make a new application
7. Find the "Get specified URLs" command and drag it to the workspace. Then edit it so it looks like this:
8. Below this, drag the "Get feeds from URLs"
9. Below that, drag the "Filter Articles" (we only want the most recent one). And set the options to "Any of the following are true", "Date Published" "Since Yesterday"
10. Drag "Get text from Articles" below the box made in step 9.
***UPDATE**** if you're running osX Lion, it's possible to stop the text from appearing twice. Beneath the "Get Text from Articles" add a "Filter Paragraphs"box. Under conditions set the following:
that is a "- ", there's a space after the dash. That should only save the text of the article, not the title. :)
11. Finally, drag "New Text File" beneath step 10's box, and set it as shown:
12. Finally, save the application as "Get Daily Hadith" (as an application too) inside the folder "Common" within the "Geektool Desktops" folder you created earlier, on your desktop.
13. You can run it if you like, to make sure it's working! Just double click it, or click the "run" button if you still have it open in automator. Now, you're going to have to get your hands a little dirty, because we need to stop this app from interrupting your work whenever we run it. So:
13a. right click on your "Get Daily Hadith" app
13b. select "show package contents"
13c. go into "contents"
13d. find "info.plist"
13e. right click, move to "open with" and choose "other"
13f. change "recommended applications" to "all applications" and find "textedit" in your application folder and use that to open the "info.plist" file
13g. scroll down to the bottom until you find these two lines
LSUIElement
change that "false" to "true", but without the quotes:
LSUIElement
go to the file menu, and select "save" and close all the finder windows to get out of there. What you've done is told the application to open in the background. You'll still be able to tell because your work may hiccup now and then, but at least it's not going to stop everything to load.
14. Now the Geektool code. I have to tell you though, that even the code I'm using isn't perfect. It's was adapted from the code I used to put my facebook feed on my desktop, and it has a tendency to put the hadith twice. Once for the title, and another for the content. This is because of how an RSS is set up, the title is usually a duplicate of the content. The workaround? Make the box small enough to only view one :P
Okay, open up the Geektool preference pane in system preferences and make a religion category. Drag yourself a "Shell"Geeklet to the desktop and a nice greyish square should appear, along with another preference pane that looks like this:
save it, and close the little window. Hopefully the Geeklet hasn't gone into a tizzy and started executing every time you touch it, but if it does, just...click other geektool stuff until it stops. If you click and hold some part of it, it usually pauses. Try and make the geeklet as small as possible and put it out of the way.
17. Drag another shell geeklet to the desktop, we'll use this one to display the hadith! Set your fonts and colors and groups and names and refresh rates before adding the code (this one's not so bad because it can execute from within Geektool).
18. In the command box, copy and paste this underlined text:
head -n 300 ~//Desktop/Geektool\ Desktops/Common/Daily\ hadith.txt | tr -s '[\n]' '\n' |tr '-' '~'| sed 's/~~/ /g' | sed 's/~//g' | sed 's/+0000//g' |grep '[a-zA-Z]'|sed '/$/G'
That was adapted from another geeklet I have that posts my facebook feed to my desktop, and was obtained from another site. Still, the principle is the same, you can see the address of the file, and the rest is just formatting stuff. Now, one issue I noticed is that this code removes anything in quotations. Which is kind of irritating since a lot of hadith's are quotes. I believe this is because of the grep '[a-zA-Z]' command there, but I'm not sure. If you find yourself with a hadith with missing quotes, try changing the command to this instead:
head -n 300 ~//Desktop/Geektool\ Desktops/Common/Daily\ hadith.txt | tr -s '[\n]' '\n' |tr '-' '~'| sed 's/~~/ /g' | sed 's/~//g' | sed 's/+0000//g' |sed '/$/G'
and see if that helps.
***July 16, 2012 UPDATE****
here's a link to where you can simply download a geeklet that will do all the Geektool coding for you (right click-Save as):
Daily Hadith Geeklet
it's in my public dropbox folder though, so if it suddenly becomes unavailable, just let me know and I can put it back :)
19. Finally, save the command, resize the geeklet to fit, and you should now have a hadith on your desktop! :) It should look something like this:
If you're experiencing any difficulty with this, or something's not working. Let me know, I'll try and help. :)
I recently became interested in a Macintosh tool called Geektool. It's a delightful little program that runs in the background and puts one of 3 things on your desktop:
1) the output from a script (i.e it'll execute a small program and display the result)
2) text from a file
3) a picture from a folder
and using just these three things, people have come up with the most amazing desktops! Just take a look at these!
more available here: http://smokingapples.com/software/15-geektool-desktop-inspirations-for-the-weekend/
It's customizable and pretty straightforward, but most people have difficulty writing the script ones. In this article, I'll teach you how to turn a twitter feed into an rss feed and using some programming, display it on your desktop using Geektool :)
1. Download Geektool: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/geektool/id456877552?mt=12
2. Install it, it'll show up as a preference pane.
3. This is the twitter feed we'll be using as our source of hadiths:
http://twitter.com/#!/DailyHadith
unfortunately, none of the programs on your mac can just take the text, so we have to convert it to an RSS feed (a type of simplistic, list approach to getting information from websites) EVEN MORE UNFORTUNATELY, the option to do this from this Twitter feed has been removed, so we have to use another website. I've already done that for you so the RSS feed you'll need will be:
feed://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.rss?screen_name=dailyhadith
4. Make a folder on your desktop called "Geektool Desktops" and within that folder, make another one called "Common". (just do it, because that's where mine is and it makes everything easier. You can probably figure out what to change if you want to move your folder somewhere else :))
5. Now, we need to write a bit of code to automatically download the latest hadith, and save it to a text file! So, open "Automator" on your mac. If you go to the little magnifying glass in the very top corner of your screen and start typing "Automator" it'll show up. It looks like a little robot holding a tube.
6. Choose to make a new application
7. Find the "Get specified URLs" command and drag it to the workspace. Then edit it so it looks like this:
8. Below this, drag the "Get feeds from URLs"
9. Below that, drag the "Filter Articles" (we only want the most recent one). And set the options to "Any of the following are true", "Date Published" "Since Yesterday"
10. Drag "Get text from Articles" below the box made in step 9.
***UPDATE**** if you're running osX Lion, it's possible to stop the text from appearing twice. Beneath the "Get Text from Articles" add a "Filter Paragraphs"box. Under conditions set the following:
that is a "- ", there's a space after the dash. That should only save the text of the article, not the title. :)
11. Finally, drag "New Text File" beneath step 10's box, and set it as shown:
12. Finally, save the application as "Get Daily Hadith" (as an application too) inside the folder "Common" within the "Geektool Desktops" folder you created earlier, on your desktop.
13. You can run it if you like, to make sure it's working! Just double click it, or click the "run" button if you still have it open in automator. Now, you're going to have to get your hands a little dirty, because we need to stop this app from interrupting your work whenever we run it. So:
13a. right click on your "Get Daily Hadith" app
13b. select "show package contents"
13c. go into "contents"
13d. find "info.plist"
13e. right click, move to "open with" and choose "other"
13f. change "recommended applications" to "all applications" and find "textedit" in your application folder and use that to open the "info.plist" file
13g. scroll down to the bottom until you find these two lines
change that "false" to "true", but without the quotes:
go to the file menu, and select "save" and close all the finder windows to get out of there. What you've done is told the application to open in the background. You'll still be able to tell because your work may hiccup now and then, but at least it's not going to stop everything to load.
14. Now the Geektool code. I have to tell you though, that even the code I'm using isn't perfect. It's was adapted from the code I used to put my facebook feed on my desktop, and it has a tendency to put the hadith twice. Once for the title, and another for the content. This is because of how an RSS is set up, the title is usually a duplicate of the content. The workaround? Make the box small enough to only view one :P
Okay, open up the Geektool preference pane in system preferences and make a religion category. Drag yourself a "Shell"Geeklet to the desktop and a nice greyish square should appear, along with another preference pane that looks like this:
you can name it "get daily hadith" and add it to the "religion" group.
15. Set the font and color to whatever you want, and pick a big refresh rate, it IS called Daily hadith for a reason :P I set mine to about 14400 seconds. Do this all now, because frequently, once you tell it to open anything, it won't let you touch it again without freaking out and running it's command. It calms down after a while, I have no idea why, but still.
16. Now, click on the "..." next to command, and a window will open up. This geeklet will be used to run the app you just made to download the hadith!
In this newly opened window, you will copy and paste the following underlined text:
open /Users/username/Desktop/Geektool\ Desktops/Common/Get\ Daily\ Hadith.app
you have to type it this way, replacing "username" with whatever your username is. I'll tell you a hint though, a "/" means "subfolder" and a "\" means there's a space in the file/folder name. So this says:
open the folder "users" then the subfolder "username" then the subfolder "Desktop" then the subfolder "Geektool Desktops" then the subfolder "Common" then the application "Get Daily Hadith.app".
17. Drag another shell geeklet to the desktop, we'll use this one to display the hadith! Set your fonts and colors and groups and names and refresh rates before adding the code (this one's not so bad because it can execute from within Geektool).
18. In the command box, copy and paste this underlined text:
head -n 300 ~//Desktop/Geektool\ Desktops/Common/Daily\ hadith.txt | tr -s '[\n]' '\n' |tr '-' '~'| sed 's/~~/ /g' | sed 's/~//g' | sed 's/+0000//g' |grep '[a-zA-Z]'|sed '/$/G'
That was adapted from another geeklet I have that posts my facebook feed to my desktop, and was obtained from another site. Still, the principle is the same, you can see the address of the file, and the rest is just formatting stuff. Now, one issue I noticed is that this code removes anything in quotations. Which is kind of irritating since a lot of hadith's are quotes. I believe this is because of the grep '[a-zA-Z]' command there, but I'm not sure. If you find yourself with a hadith with missing quotes, try changing the command to this instead:
head -n 300 ~//Desktop/Geektool\ Desktops/Common/Daily\ hadith.txt | tr -s '[\n]' '\n' |tr '-' '~'| sed 's/~~/ /g' | sed 's/~//g' | sed 's/+0000//g' |sed '/$/G'
and see if that helps.
***July 16, 2012 UPDATE****
here's a link to where you can simply download a geeklet that will do all the Geektool coding for you (right click-Save as):
Daily Hadith Geeklet
it's in my public dropbox folder though, so if it suddenly becomes unavailable, just let me know and I can put it back :)
19. Finally, save the command, resize the geeklet to fit, and you should now have a hadith on your desktop! :) It should look something like this:
If you're experiencing any difficulty with this, or something's not working. Let me know, I'll try and help. :)
Friday, August 19, 2011
Were Your Great^(some big number) Grandparents Zombies?
I was reading in that Islamic library App I mentioned about the story of Ezekiel (Hizqeel), and in it there was a little hadith that went like this:
According to Ibn Abbas, there was a place called "Damardan." It's people were inflicted with plague, so they fled, while a group of them who remained in the village perished. The Angel of Death called to the survivors: "Die you all," and they perished. After a long time, a prophet called Ezekiel passed by them and stood wondering over them, twisting his jaws and fingers. Allah (SWT) revealed to him: "Do you want Me to show you how I bring them back to life?" He said: "Yes." His idea was to marvel at the power of Allah (SWT) over them. A voice said to him: "Call: "O you bones, Allah commands you to gather up."" The bones began to fly one to the other until they became skeletons. Then Allah (SWT) revealed to him to say: "Call: "O you bones, Allah (SWT) commands you to put flesh and blood and the clothes in which you had died."" And a voice said: "Allah commands you to call the bodies to rise." And they rose. When they returned to life they said: "Blessed are You O Lord, and all praises are Yours." Ibn 'Abbas reported that the dead who were resurrected were four thousand, while Ibn Salih said they were nine thousand.
Now there's no mention that after this sign was finished these people died again. They could have gone on to lead healthy normal lives. Maybe even have kids. You know what that means (according to popular culture) many of us could be part zombie! :D
According to Ibn Abbas, there was a place called "Damardan." It's people were inflicted with plague, so they fled, while a group of them who remained in the village perished. The Angel of Death called to the survivors: "Die you all," and they perished. After a long time, a prophet called Ezekiel passed by them and stood wondering over them, twisting his jaws and fingers. Allah (SWT) revealed to him: "Do you want Me to show you how I bring them back to life?" He said: "Yes." His idea was to marvel at the power of Allah (SWT) over them. A voice said to him: "Call: "O you bones, Allah commands you to gather up."" The bones began to fly one to the other until they became skeletons. Then Allah (SWT) revealed to him to say: "Call: "O you bones, Allah (SWT) commands you to put flesh and blood and the clothes in which you had died."" And a voice said: "Allah commands you to call the bodies to rise." And they rose. When they returned to life they said: "Blessed are You O Lord, and all praises are Yours." Ibn 'Abbas reported that the dead who were resurrected were four thousand, while Ibn Salih said they were nine thousand.
Now there's no mention that after this sign was finished these people died again. They could have gone on to lead healthy normal lives. Maybe even have kids. You know what that means (according to popular culture) many of us could be part zombie! :D
Friday, August 5, 2011
Complete Islamic Library For iPhone/iPod Touch
8 Islamic Books
Cost: $4.99
Link: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/8-islamic-books-islam-quran/id402153726?mt=8
Although this app says it contains 8 Islamic books, it actually contains 8 Islamic Volumes of Books including:
"Seerat-un-Nabi" (A history of Prophet Muhammad (SAW))
"Sahih Al-Bukhari" (LOTS of hadith)
"Sahih Al-Muslim" (LOTS of hadith)
"Riyad-us-Saliheen" (Translates out to "Gardens of the Righteous", it appears to be a book on character)
"Fiqh-us-Sunnah" (A general rule book that I personally love)
"Stories from the Quran" (Stories)
"Stories of the Prophets (AS)" (Stories)
"Stories of the Sahaba" (Stories)
The good: It comes with Bukahri, Muslim, and Fiqh-us-Sunnah. The volumes are divided into their different sections, just like in their print counterparts, and they're easy to read. The stories of the Prophets, Quran, and Sahaba are a nice add too. I read through the Story of Ibraheem (AS) and Adam (AS) and Eve (AS), and they were pretty thorough. They were mostly formed using references from the Quran, but included a few additions here and there (but they said "or some version of the story say that..." or "some people think that...") if there was an unsourced bit. For example, in the Story of Ibraheem (AS) they said: "Abraham's father died before his birth and he was raised by an uncle whom Abraham called his father. Other traditions said that his father was alive and was named Azer". At any rate, they go through lots of Prophets:
Abraham
Adam and Eve
Daniel
David
Dhul-Kifl
Elia and Elisha
Enoch
Eekiel
Ezra
Hud
Isaac
Ishmael
Jeremiah bin Hilkiah
Jesus
Job
Jonah
Joseph
Lot
Moses and Aaron
Muhammad (SAW)
Noah
Saleh
Samuel
Shu'aib
Solomon
The People of Ar-Rass
The People of Yaseen
Zacharia and John
Nearly as many Sahaba, and stories from the Quran too! In summary, it's quite extensive, and also features a search!
The bad: no bookmarking, no multi-tasking support. So navigation looks like this:
Series selection (Bukhari, Muslim, Stories, etc), Table of Contents, Page with lots of scrolling. If you leave the app, you lose your spot and have to navigate to it all over again.
Final summary: if you can put up with having to dig through it every time you want to find a particular page in a particular book, it's excellent. I'm hoping they release a version with bookmarking soon, as it is quite a good app.
Cost: $4.99
Link: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/8-islamic-books-islam-quran/id402153726?mt=8
Although this app says it contains 8 Islamic books, it actually contains 8 Islamic Volumes of Books including:
"Seerat-un-Nabi" (A history of Prophet Muhammad (SAW))
"Sahih Al-Bukhari" (LOTS of hadith)
"Sahih Al-Muslim" (LOTS of hadith)
"Riyad-us-Saliheen" (Translates out to "Gardens of the Righteous", it appears to be a book on character)
"Fiqh-us-Sunnah" (A general rule book that I personally love)
"Stories from the Quran" (Stories)
"Stories of the Prophets (AS)" (Stories)
"Stories of the Sahaba" (Stories)
The good: It comes with Bukahri, Muslim, and Fiqh-us-Sunnah. The volumes are divided into their different sections, just like in their print counterparts, and they're easy to read. The stories of the Prophets, Quran, and Sahaba are a nice add too. I read through the Story of Ibraheem (AS) and Adam (AS) and Eve (AS), and they were pretty thorough. They were mostly formed using references from the Quran, but included a few additions here and there (but they said "or some version of the story say that..." or "some people think that...") if there was an unsourced bit. For example, in the Story of Ibraheem (AS) they said: "Abraham's father died before his birth and he was raised by an uncle whom Abraham called his father. Other traditions said that his father was alive and was named Azer". At any rate, they go through lots of Prophets:
Abraham
Adam and Eve
Daniel
David
Dhul-Kifl
Elia and Elisha
Enoch
Eekiel
Ezra
Hud
Isaac
Ishmael
Jeremiah bin Hilkiah
Jesus
Job
Jonah
Joseph
Lot
Moses and Aaron
Muhammad (SAW)
Noah
Saleh
Samuel
Shu'aib
Solomon
The People of Ar-Rass
The People of Yaseen
Zacharia and John
Nearly as many Sahaba, and stories from the Quran too! In summary, it's quite extensive, and also features a search!
The bad: no bookmarking, no multi-tasking support. So navigation looks like this:
Series selection (Bukhari, Muslim, Stories, etc), Table of Contents, Page with lots of scrolling. If you leave the app, you lose your spot and have to navigate to it all over again.
Final summary: if you can put up with having to dig through it every time you want to find a particular page in a particular book, it's excellent. I'm hoping they release a version with bookmarking soon, as it is quite a good app.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Canadian Hijabi: Hadith
I saw this hadith on Canadian Hijabi's Blog (http://nazia-canadianhijab.blogspot.com/) , and couldn't help but go "awwwwwwwwwwww!" :')
""When a husband and wife look at each other with Love, Allah looks at both with Mercy" [Bukhari 6:19 & Tirmidhi 14:79] What a BEAUTIFUL Hadith. I absolutely love this! Masha'Allah."
Yup, she sums it up pretty well!
Check out her blog, she's got some interesting posts there, many of which answer some common questions like "Why don't men wear hijab?" (http://nazia-canadianhijab.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-men-dont-wear-hijab.html) and "Why a muslim woman is not allowed to marry a non-muslim man?" (http://nazia-canadianhijab.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-muslim-woman-is-not-allowed-to.html)
Yup, she sums it up pretty well!
Check out her blog, she's got some interesting posts there, many of which answer some common questions like "Why don't men wear hijab?" (http://nazia-canadianhijab.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-men-dont-wear-hijab.html) and "Why a muslim woman is not allowed to marry a non-muslim man?" (http://nazia-canadianhijab.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-muslim-woman-is-not-allowed-to.html)
Friday, January 14, 2011
Athan, a Brief Guide
It's inevitable, one day we're each going to find ourselves in a situation where we have to give the athan (the "get ready to pray" call to prayer) and maybe even the iqamah (the "time to pray" call to prayer). And while we've probably heard it a thousand times, are you ready to give it? Do you know the intricacies and differences between the words? You know how we love our poetry and things sound the same. Anyway, here is a primer on what to say during the Athan and Iqamah, and what to say as a hearer of them!
Black: What the Muezzin Says
Blue: What you say (Same, obviously means that you say the same thing that the Muezzin did)
Green: A translation of more uncommon words.
The athan:
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar: Same
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar: Same
Ashadu-an la-illaha illAllah: Same
Ashadu-an la-illaha illAllah: Same
Ashadu-an a-Mohammaden rasul-Allah: Same
Ashadu-an a-Mohammaden rasul-Allah: Same
Hayala salat: "la howla wala qawta illa billa", "there is no might and no power except in Allah"
Hayala salat: "la howla wala qawta illa billa","there is no might and no power except in Allah"
Hayala falah: "la howla wala qawta illa billa", "there is no might and no power except in Allah"
Hayala falah: "la howla wala qawta illa billa", "there is no might and no power except in Allah"
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar: Same
La illaha illAllah: Same
Now, fajr's is a little different:
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar: Same
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar: Same
Ashadu-an la-illaha illAllah: Same
Ashadu-an la-illaha illAllah: Same
Ashadu-an a-Mohammaden rasul-Allah: Same
Ashadu-an a-Mohammaden rasul-Allah: Same
Hayala salat: "la howla wala qawta illa billa", "there is no might and no power except in Allah"
Hayala salat: "la howla wala qawta illa billa","there is no might and no power except in Allah"
Hayala falah: "la howla wala qawta illa billa", "there is no might and no power except in Allah"
Hayala falah: "la howla wala qawta illa billa", "there is no might and no power except in Allah"
As-salatu khayru min an-nawm, "Prayer is better than sleep": Same
As-salatu khayru min an-nawm, "Prayer is better than sleep": SameAllahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar: Same
La illaha illAllah: Same
Now that the athan's been called, you can recite the following duas:
"O Allah, Lord of this perfect call and of the prayer which is established for all time, grant Muhammad the wasila and excellency and raise him up in a praise-worthy position which you have promised." (from Bukhari, and recitation of that will assure you of the Prophet (SAW)'s intercession)
Also pray for prosperity in religion and worldly affairs:
"O Allah, I ask of You for Your pleasure and pardon and for my comfort in this world and in the hereafter and in my family and in my belongings."
And for some good old fashioned forgiveness:
"I testify that there is no God but Allah, alone, who has no partner, and that Muhammad (SAW) is His servant and messenger; I am satisfied with Allah as Lord, with Muhammad (SAW) as messenger, and with Islam as religion" (Muslim, Ma'ariful Hadith)
The iqamah is very similar to the athan, but has a few key differences. It is usually recited just a little bit faster, and has some different words.
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar: Same
Ashadu-an la-illaha illAllah: Same
Ashadu-an a-Mohammaden rasul-Allah: Same
Hayala salat: "la howla wala qawta illa billa","there is no might and no power except in Allah"
Hayala falah: "la howla wala qawta illa billa", "there is no might and no power except in Allah"
Qad qama tis-salat "Prayer has begun": "Aqamaha Allah wa adamaha"***
Qad qama tis-salat "Prayer has begun": "Aqamaha Allah wa adamaha"***
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar: Same
La illaha illAllah: Same
This phrase "Aqamaha Allah wa adamaha" is starred because it may or may not be used. I transliterated it from the book " The Ways of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (SAW)" by Dr. Muhammad Abdul Hai Aarfi. But, according to
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1119503548986&pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar%2FFatwaE%2FPrintFatwaE
it is from a weak chain, so I don't know anymore. Also, I don't know what it means, sorry.
Also, sadly, some of the information was from Wikipedia (it's a sad day when I have to use wikipedia for religious information, but it was basic stuff, so it should be pretty reliable) Other information can be found in "The Ways of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (SAW)" by Dr. Muhammad Abdul Hai Aarfi, and if you do a search for Athan, and Iqama most of the results you'll get are youtube videos with recordings.
**If I made a mistake somewhere, PLEASE point it out.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Fast Every Day, Pray All Night
Fast and Prayer, probably the 2 most difficult things to do in Islam. We have to starve ourselves from dawn to sunset for fasting, and we have to get up 5 times a day (up to twice during the night occasionally), wash ourselves if need be, hold our bodily needs for 4 minutes while remembering and reciting stuff in arabic (which for many isn't their native language) and making sure we perform the prayer right. Compare that to zakat: a little bit of math and a cheque, and Hajj: (need I remind you we only HAVE to do this once?) fly overseas, go with the flow.
This is probably why there's such great merit in fasting and prayer, so wouldn't it be marvellous if you could get the reward of fasting for a year, and praying all night without all the pesky fasting for a year and praying all night stuff? Turns out, you can!
Fasting all Year:
Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (Allah be pleased with him) reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: He who observed the fast of Ramadan and then followed it with six (fasts) of shawwal. it would be as if he fasted perpetually. (Muslim, Book #006, Hadith #2614)
Where by "perpetually" it's understood to mean "all year".
Also, you don't have to fast them all together, just any six days throughout the month. Oh, and in case you didn't know, Shawwal is the month after Ramadan.
But there's another way too!
Narrated Qatadah Ibn Malhan al-Qaysi: The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) used to command us to fast the days of the white (nights): thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth of the month. He said: This is like keeping perpetual fast. (Sunan Abudawud, Book #13, Hadith #2443)
Where the "white nights" are the 3 nights where the moon is fullest, and "perpetual fast" I'm pretty sure means "all year". Of course, I assume you'd have to do this every month, but it's sunnah to fast 3 days of every month anyway.
Praying all night:
'Abd al-Rahman b. Abd 'Amr reported: 'Uthman b. 'Affan (narrated the mosque after evening prayer and sat alone. I also sat alone with him, so he said: 0, son of my brother, I heard the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) say: He who observed the 'Isya' (Isha) prayer in congregation, it was as if he prayed up to the midnight, and he who prayed the morning prayer in congregation, it was as if he prayed the whole night. (Muslim, Book #004, Hadith #1379)
So, pray Isha in congregation and you get half a nights worth of prayer, pray fajr in congregation and you get half a nights worth of prayer, pray them both and you get a whole nights worth of prayer. Now when, ladies and gentlemen, is it MOST beneficial to pray all night???? What 10 special nights of the year are we recommended to spend in prayer??? The last 10 nights of Ramadan of course! Happy Praying! :D
This is probably why there's such great merit in fasting and prayer, so wouldn't it be marvellous if you could get the reward of fasting for a year, and praying all night without all the pesky fasting for a year and praying all night stuff? Turns out, you can!
Fasting all Year:
Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (Allah be pleased with him) reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: He who observed the fast of Ramadan and then followed it with six (fasts) of shawwal. it would be as if he fasted perpetually. (Muslim, Book #006, Hadith #2614)
Where by "perpetually" it's understood to mean "all year".
Also, you don't have to fast them all together, just any six days throughout the month. Oh, and in case you didn't know, Shawwal is the month after Ramadan.
But there's another way too!
Narrated Qatadah Ibn Malhan al-Qaysi: The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) used to command us to fast the days of the white (nights): thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth of the month. He said: This is like keeping perpetual fast. (Sunan Abudawud, Book #13, Hadith #2443)
Where the "white nights" are the 3 nights where the moon is fullest, and "perpetual fast" I'm pretty sure means "all year". Of course, I assume you'd have to do this every month, but it's sunnah to fast 3 days of every month anyway.
Praying all night:
'Abd al-Rahman b. Abd 'Amr reported: 'Uthman b. 'Affan (narrated the mosque after evening prayer and sat alone. I also sat alone with him, so he said: 0, son of my brother, I heard the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) say: He who observed the 'Isya' (Isha) prayer in congregation, it was as if he prayed up to the midnight, and he who prayed the morning prayer in congregation, it was as if he prayed the whole night. (Muslim, Book #004, Hadith #1379)
So, pray Isha in congregation and you get half a nights worth of prayer, pray fajr in congregation and you get half a nights worth of prayer, pray them both and you get a whole nights worth of prayer. Now when, ladies and gentlemen, is it MOST beneficial to pray all night???? What 10 special nights of the year are we recommended to spend in prayer??? The last 10 nights of Ramadan of course! Happy Praying! :D
Friday, September 3, 2010
Smile and Be Encouraging
I mentioned last week about AdaptiveSolutions Daily Hadith app, but they have a matching website at http://dailyhadith.adaptivesolutionsinc.com/.
I would like to share one of my favourite hadith and accompanying blurb, as it came up on the app!
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Rasul Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “Make things easy! And do not make them complicated! Be cheerful! And do not be repulsive.” [Sahih Bukhari]
Rasul Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “Teach and give good tidings! Make things easy, and do not make them hard!” [Ahmad ibn Hanbal]
These ahadith highlight the importance of being cheerful ourselves, encouraging others and making them optimistic. Imam Ibn al-Qayyim said that a believer should have two wings; one of fear and one of good hope in Allah. If a person were unrealistically optimistic, they would stop working to achieve their goals, thinking that things will come to them anyway. On the other hand, pessimism also prevents a person from acting, since they have no hope and see no good in doing anything. Therefore, as teachers we should encourage optimism at the same time that we discourage overconfidence.
The first hadith also points out that when a person is not cheerful, they do not possess the ability to draw other people to them, instead, they repel them. One of the ways to be cheerful is to smile. The Sahabah told us that nobody smiled more than the Prophet of Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam). This is proof enough for us to smile.
Current research tells us that the physical act of smiling releases certain chemicals in our bodies that help us fight disease, produce happiness, and properly modulate sleep and appetite. In addition, when the brain and heart activity of volunteers was measured, it was seen that a smile gave the same level of stimulation that 2000 bars of chocolate would. Smiling encourages others to remember happy events, feel optimistic and be motivated. So, smile to make others more receptive to your message.
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Take a look at the website, you can make a little account and save your favourite hadiths to it!
I would like to share one of my favourite hadith and accompanying blurb, as it came up on the app!
---------
Rasul Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “Make things easy! And do not make them complicated! Be cheerful! And do not be repulsive.” [Sahih Bukhari]
Rasul Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “Teach and give good tidings! Make things easy, and do not make them hard!” [Ahmad ibn Hanbal]
These ahadith highlight the importance of being cheerful ourselves, encouraging others and making them optimistic. Imam Ibn al-Qayyim said that a believer should have two wings; one of fear and one of good hope in Allah. If a person were unrealistically optimistic, they would stop working to achieve their goals, thinking that things will come to them anyway. On the other hand, pessimism also prevents a person from acting, since they have no hope and see no good in doing anything. Therefore, as teachers we should encourage optimism at the same time that we discourage overconfidence.
The first hadith also points out that when a person is not cheerful, they do not possess the ability to draw other people to them, instead, they repel them. One of the ways to be cheerful is to smile. The Sahabah told us that nobody smiled more than the Prophet of Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam). This is proof enough for us to smile.
Current research tells us that the physical act of smiling releases certain chemicals in our bodies that help us fight disease, produce happiness, and properly modulate sleep and appetite. In addition, when the brain and heart activity of volunteers was measured, it was seen that a smile gave the same level of stimulation that 2000 bars of chocolate would. Smiling encourages others to remember happy events, feel optimistic and be motivated. So, smile to make others more receptive to your message.
---------
Take a look at the website, you can make a little account and save your favourite hadiths to it!
Saturday, August 28, 2010
My Favourite Islamic Iphone Apps
I don't know whether or not there are versions of these apps for other platforms, so you'll probably have to check.
Salat Times: Guidedways Ipray: Prayer times and Qiblah Compass ($3.99)
This is a very sleek and polished app. It has the salat times for Fajr, Ishraaq, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, Isha, and even Qiyam (which, might I add, was a feature I recommended ;) ) You can see the prayer times up to 5 days ahead, as well as the phase of the moon, Qibla direction (from sun, moon and north), and dates of islamic events (Year start, Ashoora, Ramadan, Lailat-ul-Qadr, Eid ul-Fitr, Hajj days, Arafah, and Eid-ul-Adha). There are plenty of cities built in, and it will even use the Iphone's gps to determine your location. You can adjust the hijra date and even individual prayer times, mail the days or month's prayer times. Plus there are a few nice themes to choose from!
There is a free, lite version available. The only real differences are that it will not use the iPhone's built in compass to show you the Qibla direction (you'll have to get the angle from north, then open the compass app), and if memory serves, it won't let you adjust individual prayer times. And I think the number of notifications the app can send you regarding prayer times is less in the lite version. I recommend buying the full version, it's worth it to have the Qibla direction shown to you within the app, and adjust individual prayer times.
Quran: Guidedways IQuran Pro (4.99)
This is an excellent Quran reader, you can choose from many languages (multiple english ones too, including Shakir, Mohsin Khan, Yusuf Ali, Pickthal, and Mohd Asad) including a Transliteration! You can also select from a bunch of different reciters for any audio that you've downloaded (Sheikh Husary, Mishary Rahsed Al-Afasy, Saood & Shuraim, Abu Bakr Ash-Shatree, Abdul Basit, and Ghamdi) and you can download all or individual Surats as you like! There's the brilliant option to add notes, and bookmarks, plus you can search through the translation you're reading! Now, I have found some mistransliterations here and there, but I notified the developers and they're fixing it. My only real gripe with this app (apart from it's relatively steep price) is it's transliteration. It's very good, except that you have to guess s's, h's, t's, and th's because they don't differentiate between Ø« and ظ and Ø°, or ت and Ø·, or Ø and Ù‡, or ص and س. The only thing they give you are ع's which are shown as two capital A's next to each other. But perhaps they'll fix this in a future update ;).
Hadith: Adaptive Solution's Daily Hadith (free)
This is a very simple app; every day it will download a new hadith from their website, complete with a little blurb about it. The hadith's get saved to your device for viewing later. You can bookmark your favourite hadith's, as well as email them to friends.
Honorable mention goes to Thaer Ali's Hadith Al Bukhari, it's the complete collection of Sahih Bukhari in a single app, for only $0.99. You can bookmark hadith's and email them, you can even search. The search however, is VERY slow, but it is digging through a massive book...still, it's irritating in a hurry, especially if it doesn't turn up anything. If anyone knows a better one, please let me know! :D
Dua: Thaer Ali's IDua ($0.99)
This is essentially a digital version of the very popular Fortification of the Muslim through Remembrance and supplication from the Quraan and the Sunnah book compiled and referenced by Sa'eed Ibn Ali Ibn Wahf Al-Qahtaani. Unfortunately, there's no option to search, bookmark, or email. And the back button, will only take you to the previous dua, not the title or last screen (which we're so used to thanks to internet browser layout :P). Still, it's my favourite because of it's coverage. If you want to try before you buy, simply find the paper version! :P
Thikr: Guidedways Isubha ($1.99)
A very sleek looking (like all their apps actually) app, that will give you a list of common Tasbeeh's, then let you push a little counter that will show how many you've made. It will make a noise and vibrate whenever you've done 33, 66, or 100, and it has a very nice little animation or prayer beads that appear every time you count. It includes a session counter, a total tasbeeh counter, as well as session and total timers. You can password protect your statistics so no one can see them, as well as pause and resume sessions. Unfortunately, the tasbeeh's are written in arabic, so you'll need to know a little arabic to read them, but you can add your own ones in english! I don't know how high it will count though, hopefully I'll find out soon! :D
Additional:
Thaer Ali's Hadith Qudsi (free): a collection of hadith in an app similar to his Idua app.
Magnicode's Qwords ($6.99, but there's a free lite version): a good idea, but not perfectly executed, this app will teach you the most common words in the Quran. It will display the english translation, the arabic word and an ayat in which it appears. It will also speak the word for you. Unfortunately, navigation is a little difficult, so try the lite version before dropping some cash for it.
Aman Akbar's Allah's 99 Names (free): I had a hard time finding a decent app for God's 99 names. All I really wanted was a massive list of the names, with english translation. This one is just that (a random button would have been nice though) It displays the name in a beautiful painting, with transliteration and translation below.
Know any other good apps? Or better versions of Apps that I have? Let me know in the comments! :D
Saturday, December 19, 2009
It Almost Makes You Wonder "Why Recite Anything Else?"
There is merit in memorizing Quran, quite a bit actually. It is the only method (I know of) that will allow you to actually move up in heaven once you are already there.
Narrated Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-'As: The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) said: One who was devoted to the Qur'an will be told to recite, ascend and recite carefully as he recited carefully when he was in the world, for he will reach his abode when he comes to the last verse he recites. (Book #8, Hadith#1459)
So the more you know the higher you go.
Now, the Hadith says verses, which could be taken to mean either Surats or Ayats, but some are longer than others so I wonder how that factors in... at any rate, with a bit of math:
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS MY OWN MATH AND HAS NO BASIS IN HADITH OR QURAN.
- There are 18248 words in the Quran (http://www.searchtruth.com/showWords.php?translator=1), and 7 heavens. That gives 2607 words per level.
- There are 114 Surah's in the Quran, so: 17 surahs per level.
- There are 6349 ayat's in the Quran (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayah) (yes, wikipedia. :( ) so: 907 ayat per level.
- And actually, 113 of those are just "Bismillahi Rahmani Rahim" so: 891 ayat's per level.
More benefits (like Quranic intercession) found at: http://www.themodernreligion.com/basic/quran/quran-benefits.html
But let it be known that some Surat's are better than others. Surat Al-Ikhlas, for example, is worth 1/3 of the Quran:
The two really worth mentioning are #99 (Al Zalzalah) and #100 (Al-Adiyat) as each one is worth half of the Quran:
The Prophet (sal Allau alaihi wa sallam) said, "Whoever recites Aadiyat, his reward equals one half of the Qur'an." [Hakim and Tirmidhi]
Abdullah Ibn Abbas (radi Allahu anhu) reported that the Prophet (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said, "Whoever recites Surah Zalzalah (99) will get the reward of reciting half the Qur'an." [Tirmidhi]
And since it's sunnah to do Quranic recitation in 2 of the rukaa's of the daily prayers, you could have the reward of reciting the entire Quran five times (or more ;) ) every day for the rest of your life!! Then you'd just need to figure out how to work reciting the rest of the Quran into your day....
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Do Not Reciprocate
Another great hadith and commentary
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Rasul Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “If somebody reproaches you and makes you feel ashamed of any of your defects, do not make him feel ashamed of any of his defects.” [Abu Daud]
Usually, when somebody points out one of our shortcomings, we immediately become defensive and start finding faults with them. But the advice of our beloved Rasul Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam), is that we should listen quietly and evaluate what we are being told. If there is something we can improve about ourselves, it is only to our own advantage to do so. If the criticism is unjustified, then we are rewarded for our patience and good behaviour in not retaliating. The angels will take care of defending our honour. Starting a counter attack opens the door for Shaytaan to come in and take over.
Once Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq (radi Allahu anhu) was sitting with the Prophet (sal allahu alaihi wa sallam) when a man came and started to abuse Hazrat Abu Bakr. Hazrat Abu Bakr remained silent. Finally, he started to speak in his defence. At this point the Prophet (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) got up and left. Hazrat Abu Bakr immediately went after him and inquired if he had done something wrong. Rasul Allah replied that as long as he had been silent, angels had been speaking on his behalf, but when he started to respond, the devil came and sat down next to him. As the Prophet (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) could not remain seated where the devil was sitting, he left.
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Rasul Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) said: “If somebody reproaches you and makes you feel ashamed of any of your defects, do not make him feel ashamed of any of his defects.” [Abu Daud]
Usually, when somebody points out one of our shortcomings, we immediately become defensive and start finding faults with them. But the advice of our beloved Rasul Allah (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam), is that we should listen quietly and evaluate what we are being told. If there is something we can improve about ourselves, it is only to our own advantage to do so. If the criticism is unjustified, then we are rewarded for our patience and good behaviour in not retaliating. The angels will take care of defending our honour. Starting a counter attack opens the door for Shaytaan to come in and take over.
Once Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq (radi Allahu anhu) was sitting with the Prophet (sal allahu alaihi wa sallam) when a man came and started to abuse Hazrat Abu Bakr. Hazrat Abu Bakr remained silent. Finally, he started to speak in his defence. At this point the Prophet (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) got up and left. Hazrat Abu Bakr immediately went after him and inquired if he had done something wrong. Rasul Allah replied that as long as he had been silent, angels had been speaking on his behalf, but when he started to respond, the devil came and sat down next to him. As the Prophet (sal Allahu alaihi wa sallam) could not remain seated where the devil was sitting, he left.
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