Khushoo, Spring of Civilization, Halfway Measures to Prom
Issue 329 » June 3, 2005 - Rabi-al-Thani 25, 1426
General
| Living the Quran |
Al-Muminun
(The Believers)
Khushoo means calmness, serenity, tranquillity, dignity and humility. What makes a person have this khushoo is fear of Allah and the sense that He is always watching. Khushoo means that the heart stands before the Lord in humility and submission. Salah (prayer) is the greatest of the practical pillars of Islam, and khushoo (humility and attentiveness) in prayer is required by shariah (Islamic law). When Iblees (Satan), the enemy of Allah, vowed to mislead and tempt the sons of Adam and said “Then I will come to them from before them and behind them, from their right and from their left…” [Surah al-Araf 7:17], one of his most significant plots became to divert people from salah by all possible means and to whisper to them during their prayer so as to deprive them of the joy of this worship and cause them to lose the reward for it. As khushoo will be the first thing to disappear from the earth, and we are living in the last times, the words of Hudhayfah (may Allah be pleased with him) are particularly pertinent to us: “The first thing of your religion that you will lose is khushoo, and the last thing that you will lose of your religion is Prayer. There may be a person praying who has no goodness in him, and soon you will enter the mosque and not find anyone who has khushoo.” The site of khushoo is the heart, and its effects are manifested in the physical body. The various faculties follow the heart: if the heart is corrupted by negligence or insinuating whispers from Satan, the worship of the body’s faculties will also be corrupt. The heart is like a king and the faculties are like his troops who follow his orders and go where they are commanded. If the king is deposed, his followers are lost, which is like what happens when the heart does not worship properly. Source: |
| Understanding the Prophet's Life |
| The Spring of Civilization The spring from which the Companions of the Prophet (peace be
upon him) drank was the Quran; only the Quran, as the Hadith of
the Prophet and his teachings were offspring of this fountainhead.
When someone asked the Mother of the Faithful, Aisha (may God
be pleased with her), about the character of the Prophet, she
answered, 'His character was the
Quran.' Source: |
| Blindspot! |
Halfway Measures to the Prom Some Muslim youth want to go to the Prom not for the sex, drugs, alcohol or rockn'roll, but simply to have a good time with their friends. They have no intention of approaching these aspects of the evening. While on the surface, this may seem acceptable, the reality is very different. “You're seeing people you've spent the last five years [in some parts of Canada, high school is for five years] of your life with in their worst behaviour, and you're rationalizing it,” says Sakr of this kind of reasoning. “It's really hard to have a halfway thing,” says
Imam. ”Once you're there, you can't say ‘I refuse to participate in your evil kind of entertainment',” says Imam, adding that most youth would probably feel it's rude to leave. “If you think that you can protect yourself, then you're entrusting yourself to your own weakness,” says Rehman. She adds that Allah warns against even going near Zina. With the Prom, you're not only going near that, but also near alcohol and drugs. “You're bearing witness to the Haram and ask yourself, if you were to die there, how would you face Allah, that this is the last time you would be with your friends?” asks Sakr. The Prom is a major test for Muslim youth. It represents the struggle against some of the very basic elements of what is defined as a “good time” in North American teenage culture. Muslim parents and communities need to work together to recognize and help the youth fight against these pressures. Source: |
