Key To The Garden : Ridha [ Contentment/Acceptance ]...T.J Winter aka Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad

I enjoy TJ Winter aka Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad's discourse on Ridha. He is from Cambridge University.

Contentment / Acceptance are poor 'transliteration ' of the Arabic term 'Ridha'. Ridha is an important 'Key To The Garden'. It underline the meaning of ' submission ' as in Islam, and the Shahadah, " La ila haillallah , Muhammadarasullallah "

To be in a 'state of ease' with the things unfolding around us on a daily basis. To wake up in the morning, with much relief and remembrance and 'astaghafirullah', and to be open with what God has in 'store for us on our plates today'. It is a special , profound 'state of mind' to be in..........a special gift.

The post-modern man, most often than not, believers and non-believers alike, without much exception, assume that the soul is his, and will be with him automatically at the break of dawn. It never occurred to him that there is possibility it might not be allowed back from it's nocturnal journey to Him. Such has our spiritual degradation gone down the lane, in the sand of time. To be modern is to be heedless of important minute detail such as this.

[ here TJ Winter discusses Ridha from the 'macro' as well as the 'micro' perspective, from the perspective of the ummah as a whole as well as at the individual level ]




Part 1 :-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN0_WD-fpEQ

Part 2 :-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euN5NvxjaaY&spfreload=5

Part 3 :-


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LVfQug9aN0

Part 4 :-


http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=PGfPvCaDj7g&feature=endscreen



...the beauty of being ummah of sayyidina muhammad is still  that they are all in the 'supertanker'; no doubt it is slow to change direction suddenly; the crews are seasick; and some are just holding on to the ship but not out into the sea; whilst the rest  are already in the lifeboats and numerous others already swimming in the water.


....the dalai lama has conceded that homosexuality is permissible in buddhism and the christians are inventing new forms of worship every other year.

.....our ship are going to sail thru the stormy water. With time some of the rest are just going to join us since we are the only ship still afloat.

Part 5 :-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQNk_B6fOik

...we tend to think that this present time is a catastrophe for all of us but actually it is a gem, a diamond somewhat needing a wee bit of  some polishing.....


...of you have one billion  dollars, you cannot sleep at night because someone down the millionaire's row has two ! we are not in this 'ball-game' thank God...this 'dunya' is like salt water, the more we drink, the more thirsty we get....

Key To The Garden :..Free Will

" Ya Baniy [ Oh  my Son ], you will not taste the sweetness of iman until you know that what befalls you is not meant to miss you and what missed you is not meant to befall you..."
This is a well known, often-quoted statement from a senior Companion, on his death-bed, advising his son...quoting from a well-known Prophetic tradition.


How does it jive with  the all important concept of 'Free Will' , you might ask?

From the above statement , our 'degree of freedom' from the perspective of 'cause and effect' seemed already to have been curtailed. But, alas, we believers are brought up on the staple diet of the fact that they is a 'Day of Judgement'. A Day of Judgement is sine qua non in our belief system: each and everyone of us are all 'accountable for even an 'atom' and morsel of our very own action,  be it good or evil' , and this by itself presupposes that there must be 'Free-Will'. Take away ''Free Will',  then, the Day  of Judgement become nonsensical !

Our philosophical difficulty and problem with 'Free-Will' is constrained because we live in a four-dimensional world of 'space and time' and 'matter', ie 'matter' having volume and mass, which automatically limits 'freedom'.

Our problems are both 'linguistic' as well as 'conceptual'.
We are limited by our very limited 'world' of languages and perceptions, while the 'unseen' or the 'al-Ghaiba'  is 99.9 %  beyond words or description.

But think for a moment, God is way above these pettiness of 'space' and 'time' and 'matter'. His realm is the realm of the 'al-Ghaiba'. No, I need to be corrected: He 'owns' the 'Seen and the Unseen', and all those in between: our thoughts, perceptions, calculations and miscalculations, roses ,warts, carbuncles and all!

Say: Though the sea became ink for the Words of my Lord, verily the sea would be used up before the words of my Lord were exhausted, even though We brought the like thereof to help. (al Kahf: 109)

Indeed , 'space' and 'time'; just like creatures like you and me and all things around us which include the air we breath in and all the things 'seen' and 'unseen' ; are His inventions.

“With Him are the keys of the unseen, the treasures that none knows but He. He knows whatever there is on the earth and in the sea. Not a leaf falls but with His knowledge: there is not a grain in the darkness (or depths) of the earth, nor anything fresh or dry (green or withered), but is (inscribed) in a record clear (to those who can read).” [ al-An'am: 59 ]

To God, today, yesterday and tomorrow,[ for  all His living and'non-living 'creatures' ],  all of them happened in the 'wink' of an 'eyelid'. And please pardon me again for using another 'worldly ' expression....

" Ya Baniy [ Oh  my Son ],  you will not taste the sweetness of iman until you know that what befalls you are not meant to missed you, and what missed you is not meant to befall you..." thus has to be dealt with at a higher level of comprehension.
We have to raise ourselves 'beyond ourselves', beyond our everyday 'pettiness' to comprehend and fathom it.

Dr Nik Howk
http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/ [ Pearls and Gem ]
tafseerkoran.blogspot.com
http://translandjourney.blogspot.com/




Listen to Mokhtar al-Magrhaoui for a better understanding of this concept of 'Free- Will' .

Shaykh Mokhtar, Algerian by descent,  one of the most well renowned scholars in North America and is a foundation scholar for Al-Madina Institute.  He is thoroughly versed in the Islamic sciences and holds a doctorate joined between the fields of physics and engineering. His expertise includes the disciplines of Tazkiyah and Fiqh, and he is best known for his enlightening retreats and seminars empowering Muslims on their spiritual quest.

Part 1

....imagine a heart surgeon from a 'three dimensional world' operating on a 'patient' in a two dimensional , 'flat world'
....our souls operate beyond our three dimensional world. 'It' has a higher degree of freedom




Part 2

0:04:00    Ya baniy...
0:09:15    'ilm ghaib' is in the realm of the upper dimension..
0:11:11    the laws of physics break at a time of T=O, in fact it breaks earlier than that...
0:17:20    'kursi' of al-Rahman...'the foot-stool' of 'The Throne'...


Part 3

02:10      the muktazilah
04:20      two different dimension
06:25      al-Jabariyah school of theology....total divine coersion
25:10      words from a 4-dimensional world describing a supra-dimensional experience


Part 4

06:20     where does Allah wants you to with your qalb ?
07:30     'tazkiyatul-naf
08:50     qada' and doa
09:30     Allah and Rasul always want us to be in continuous doa
14:13     sweetness in iman in contradistinction to restlessness and agitation
16.30      tauhidul-ubudiah requires ACTION




Part 5

00:40    did Allah create evil?
10:10    ' minsharima khalaq'....from the evil of his creature and not from the evil He created!
26:00    the world is mostly good...Ibnu Qayyim

28:20    'When is the Hour'?.....when there exist mainly 'evil'
38:10    is there any 'khair' [goodness] in the creation of 'syaitan'?
41:00    on 'riak'

Key To The Garden : al-Magrhaoui on 'Happiness'

Shaykh Mokhtar Maghraoui is one of the most well renowned scholars in North America and is a foundation scholar for Al-Madina Institute. Originally from Algeria, he is thoroughly versed in the Islamic sciences and holds a doctorate joined between the fields of physics and engineering. His expertise includes the disciplines of Tazkiyah and Fiqh, and he is best known for his enlightening retreats and seminars empowering Muslims on their spiritual quest.

Here , he expounded on the universal quest for happiness, its meaning in Islam, and the modus operandi to achieving it.

1:40:00.....learn, learn, learn, and learn at the 'feet of the scholars'
1:42:00.....on wealth, power, arrogance
1:45:00.....Syaitan's keys to your Qalb: 7 keys....

Key To The Garden : "Hidup Sesudah Mati"..Prof Hamka

Prof Hamka, I would rate him as my first 'guru'. Liked his tafseer so much, I have gone through his 10 volume 'Tafsir Al-Azhar' almost three times over. Took me fifteen years mulling  and chewing over them. A compendium of hadiths, history from the Muslim's perspective, politics and above all, first class tafsir work.
The beauty of Hamka's is that he did not profess himself to be an expert 'mufassirin', therefore you tend to get other views as well, most time for each 'significant ayat'.

A much under-rated scholar in this 'Nusantara' I would guess. Those who should read and 'know him better' choose to be seen and heard reading katsir and Qatadah  or Tabai-Tabain, those who have not reach this level of scholarship, do not read at all.
That is our 'Nusantara' , if you want me to 'summarise' ourselves in a nutshell....masses of the ignorant 'un-read'.

Here Prof Hamka 'speaks' on 'Life After Death':-

Key To The Garden :..three levels of complaint

..

if you are the 'complaining type', and things are never right with you ,A  video like this would make you  'touch' base,

Now if you are in more philosophical mood and ready, let us move on to a higher plane,

....but if you are 'young' and still angry, let us move on to another plane :-

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2012/08/let-us-talk.html

Key To The Garden : Jewels & Pearls from Imam al-Ghazali

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf  Hanson reverts to Islam at age 17. He then begins  a life journey to study this new Din, which first lands him in Mauritania to be under a  Shaykh, immersing himself into Islam wholly, the traditional way, from a Shaykh to another Sahykh to another and another and finally to a student. Later on, he moved on to Egypt, Morocco and UAE. With his film-star persona and his special God-given gift in getting through to people in the English medium, he is currently the 'Brad Pitt' in the Muslim world. He has his fair shares of detractors of course, mainly those from the Hijaz, who view Islam, from a very myopic angle, worsened  additionally by their lack of knowledge and their inability to take away the 'proverbial blinkers' permanently attached to their 'minds'.

Here, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf talks on the contributions of al-Ghazali:-

[ Disregard the initial 'longish'  zikr, if you are not into it, skip the first 10 minutes...I enjoy very much this lecture...

an intro to Imam Ghazali's Ihya, and Imam al-Ghazali, the man ]

................................................................

The Alchemist of Happiness,

[ film directed by Abdul Latiff  Ovidio Salazar ]

Exploring the life and impact of the greatest spiritual and legal philosopher in Islamic history, this film examines Ghazali's existential crisis of faith that arose from his rejection of religious dogmatism, and reveals profound parallels with our own times. 

Ghazali became known as the Proof of Islam and his path of love and spiritual excellence overcame the pitfalls of the organized religion of his day. His path was largely abandoned by early 20th century Muslim reformers for the more strident and less tolerant school of Ibn Taymiyya. Combining drama with documentary, this film argues that Ghazali's Islam is the antidote for today's terror. 

Key To The Garden : 'Caravan of Illumination'

How long will you keep pounding on an open door
     begging for someone to open it?   

Rabi'a  al-'Adawiyya

Mokhtar al-Maghraoui, Algerian in descent, double PHD in Physics and Electronics Engineering, domiciled in USA, a principal figure and co-founder  of Al-Madina Institute. I always enjoy his profound insightful lectures. This one titled "Caravan of Illumination
discussed the need for us all in this material world of the 21st century to fill our present existential vacuum arising from this infectious and epidemic overly obsession with the 'dunya' and to start giving space in our 'qalbs' [ 'hearts']for the 'hub' [ 'love', for want of a better expression iin English ]of Prophet Muhammad.

Until and unless we open our hearts and our minds to that possibility, our hearts  would remain hardened and impervious to the beauty and wisdom of the Divine Letters, our eyes remaining dry, and our ears deaf......'Deaf, Dumb and Blind', we could still crawl on, but what a life!

We would just , like millions and billions others, who have gone through their life journey before us, be unmoved, insipid, nominal Muslims who may not have the benefit of the penultimate meeting at the al-Kawther, on the day of the Yaumiddin




Caravan of Illumination : Shaykh Mokhtar al-Maghraoui

[ sorry guys, ''caravan of illumination'' is no longer available, a replacement discourse from shakyh mohtar is presented here....dr nik 25/sept/2020 ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzbLGG8vEnw&list=PL-vQG4meJqr7DewWUOFyc2M06KRrbtEDk&index=5

Key To The Garden : In Pursuit Of Happiness....

Pursuit of happiness is multi-dimensional.
Even from the Islamic perspective the formulla seems to differ from one shaykh to another.
If you talk to Prof Syed Naguib al-Attas, happiness in Islam is in following the right ADAB. The good prof is looking from an 'overview', 'eagle -eye', perspective

Prof Hoessien Nasr will put it differently. He has to contend with an almost 100 % Western  academic audience, and the need to pander to their minds, taste and perspective, and bring and cajole them forward to an Islamic one. If he 'talks' the way Naguib or Hasan al-basri do, not one of his audience would understand him, Such is the dichotomy between Islam and the West now
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p8kSiNLnEQ&feature=related ]

If  however you  can go back to the 7th century and are able to talk to the sufi saint of the tabi'in period, Hasan al-Basri, the foremost expert in experiential Islam, he would just encapsulate happiness or show the modus operandi to 'happiness' into just three things: daily recitation of the Qur'an; 'heart' in constant remembrance of Him; and the enjoyment of the daily obligatory solat.  

A very experiential  perspective full of wisdom.[ In his days and time, not being seen praying the obligatory solat in the mosque for a significant period of time without adequate excuse  was tantamount to the behavior akin to those of the al-munafikuns ! ]

All of them are looking and saying the same thing, but from different angles and perspective and different time and period frame..

Mufti al-Kawthari here gets down to the basic,nitty gritty of  what constitute happiness for the average present day Muslim, that  constitute 99.9 % of us....the average Muslim.

He is looking at the 'modus operandi' to happiness in say downtown London , which is audience consisting of university students , or in  Kuala Lumpur  for that matter. 

He looks at the 'nut and bolt' of happiness, which is still possible in 2012.


Mufti  Muhammad al-Kawthari, On Pursuit of Happiness,
[  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6UBrNir4DY&noredirect=1  ]



Ps: 

Key words from his lecture:-
'
Contentment of the 'heart'
Content with the divine decree
Always 'looking below you' in the matter of the 'dunya'- shukur
'Looking up' in the matter of  the 'Din'
Don't expect from people
Muraqabah tul mawt [ think about death many many times a day ! ]
Solatul fajar followed by recitation of the Qur'an, contemplation and zikir
Smile...............


I am going to throw two spanners into the 'engine of happiness', as a parting  remark :
Shaykh Abdal Qadir al- Jilani put it as ' Rida and then do the halal things and avoid the haram'.
We are going  back one whole circle......Rida with  what is thrown to us on our plate by Him, 24/7, 365 days a year, every year !
Abdullah al- Ansari, an 11th century sufi saint, look at a different perspective. He had this to say about sorrow , the direct opposite of happiness:
'My friend, sorrow stems from three 'wants': to want before it is due; to want what is beyond your allotment; and to want what belongs to others'.

.......................................

Fresh catch from " Pearls & Gem ",
Scene 2 : The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2012/11/case-history-good-bad-and-uglyscene-2.html

Key To The Garden : Understanding Abu Hamid al-Ghazali

My first brush with theologian, thinker,sufi shaykh, hujjatul-Islam, writer, scholar par excellence Abu Hamid al-Ghazali must be some 27 years ago.  In my early days as a young internist, just back from London, I was so excited when  I was'seconded' to Tabung haji Board' for 4 months, heading the medical team looking after  the health and safety of some 25 to 30 thousand Malaysian pilgrims in Saudi . Apart from having to read everything under the sun about heat stroke, meningitis, pneumonia etc etc and etc, I had to arm myself with some knowledge about Islam and Haj.

Read Ali Shariati's "Hajj" [' Howk,  jange baca benda2 ugamo kalu tak berguru!...nanti sesat !!'..my sister in law quipped anxiously, her Qur'an ,all well stacked up high on the cupboard, untouched for 30 over years,.... 'so very afraid of being lost!']. I  started on Hamka's tafseer and  for safe measure, bought the four volume Ihya, an Indonesian translation work.[ Our so-called ulama' are all sleeping  or back-biting each other!, but this 'topic' is for another day, another blog.........]

Now 27 years later, as for  Hamka's ten volume 'Tafsir Azhar', I have gone through three times over. I found out Ali Shariati's  very short 'Hajj' one of the best treatise on the Haj. Not easily available in the bookstore , since , remember, he is a shiah.... but the four-volume Ihya still remained in my library, untouched......collecting dust.

After listening to Hamza Yusuf now, I have made a mental note to start attacking 'it' sometime before the year's end. He is after all the 'Hujjatul Islam'. His ' Dzikr al- Mawt amma ba'du ' or 'Remembrance of Death and the Aftrelife', beautifully translated by TJ Winter and published by Fons Vitae, I have finished cover to cover twice over...a bloody good read. Highly recommended reading to tie down our  overbulging 'naf', and this increasing, unquenched love for this 'dunya'.

"Allahumma inni au' zubika min  sarri nafsi"
[ Oh Allah, protect me from the horrors of my own naf ]


Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson on ' Understanding Al-Ghazali ',

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJezFjbn-6M&feature=related







thanks to lina joy, she started me blogging and resulted in the 'birth' of 'pearls & gem'; ...and subsequently 'tafseerkoran.blogspot.com'

http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2008/05/lina-joy-case-what-it-meant-to-us-as.html

Key To The Garden : ' Your Time Is Up ! '

three old friends discussing nothing less then billions of ringgits, last wednesday night. 

what a way to celebrate my 68th birthday! ......

one marhein nearly broke plumber, one millionaire and another a probable billionaire.

we discussess many issues.

ku nan had collected more than 900 million ringgit over his chequered career as an amenu sec general or was he their treasurer?
2 million rm, he opined publicly, is just loose change to him. lucky bloke this chap, ku nan.
in kelantan, we called people like him, tengku hari jumaat....if you are born on malam jumaat some parents either give yo a 'tengku' or a 'sayyid'.

tdm's  family , alledged with a myriad labyrinthine of nominess and etc and etc, how many billions, we don't know....it will remain  a paradox to millions of us

the former neac chairman, with business empire straddling several continents, we all dont know his net worth..

even the  the late lowly ex ambassador to usa had well passed 1 billion rm!

omg!

there are all brilliant business people and political figures all in one!

but if allah asks any one of them to see HIM tomorrow , are they ready?

......for that matter, are we ready?

nik howk

.....................................................................
 
Death is a taboo subject for all.
Yet, in a well-known tradition of the Prophet, remembering  death often, forms one of the most  important elements
to 'spur' as to 'jannah'.....a ' Key To The Garden '. 

It is a panacea for heedlessness; extreme love for things material; and corruption, both in the 'private' and  much worse, in the 'public' domain. 

In the private domain, corruption involve self and at the most, the 'family'. The principal players are uncontrolled 'naf' and excesssive love of the world.In the public domain, invariably it is lust for the world and properties; and 'fitnah' of the loved ones;wanting to leave their offsprings with the 'dunia' that would last for seven generations etc and etc. Thus children, wives are 'fitnah' to us if we are not careful....... 

These people  incurred  more damage to society and the effects are more serious and far reaching. It affect the whole fabric of society, and  cause 'paralysis and malaise' from top to bottom of society as the disease is 'infectious' and spread both vertically, spiraling downwards,  as well as side-way. 

But alas! ,We see much of this,too often, in the so-called Muslim world we live in, [ within the Arab and the non-Arab countries ], blatant lack of accountability among the ruling political  and economic elites, the shakers and movers of societies.... Daylight 'robberies'  of public funds and outright shameless 'public looting'. This, unfortunately, has, by an large, become the norm rather than the exception in the third world countries which are predominantly 'Islamic' in demography. 

This blatant lack of remembrance of death, and accountability that come immediately after that, is one of the major root cause of this current epidemic of heedlessness amongst our political, ruling, and economic elites.........

These clowns think, like Jews of Moses time, since they are Muslims, they are thus insulated from being thrown into the ignominy of 'Hell'! 
How very superficially misguided can they be!!

Let us all listen to Mufti Ismail Menk, and, insyaallah, draw some lessons and understanding......





Mufti Ismail Menk of Zimbabawe, on ' YOUR TIME IS UP ! "
Part 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q87zxiBU6SQ
Part 2 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ7PIqKe9FE&feature=related







Fresh Catch from " Pearls & Gem " :-

1. Expiry Date
http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2012/08/on-death-and-dying-expiry-date.html
2. The Good, The Bad, The Ugly......
http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2012/10/case-history-good-bad-ugly.html
3. Young Deaths
http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2012/07/case-history-young-deaths.html
4. Man Rabbuka
http://drnikisahak.blogspot.com/2010/11/ma-rabbukawho-is-your-lord.html

Key To The Garden : Dzikr....

Hasan al-Basri's triology to 'Happiness' in the here and the hereafter consisted of :
1. Solat
2. Recitation  of the Qur'an with understanding 
    and comprehension
3  Dzikr

Very simple , practical SOP, coming from a mastercraftman
 at 'living' life: one foot here, the other in the hereafter...
Very profound .


"And do thou (O Muhammad) remember thy Lord within thyself humbly and with awe, below thy breath, at morn and evening. And be not thou of the neglectful." ( Al A'Araf , 205 )


Let us listen to Shaykh Ninowy on ,

" From Rituals to Spiritual..."

[   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2crgYMnBwv0   ]





....and khiai muhammad bhakiet on dzikr,

[   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAg_kV3wH-A   ]


[    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6A3dkyQDVk   ]

Key To The Garden : The Alchemy to Happiness...Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali

friends, dato and tanseri,

before we move on to the next surah, surah al a'raf, ''the plateau'', we reverse back in time from shaykh hamza yusuf at itm auditorium shah alam, back to bahgdah at the turn of the 11th century.

put yourselves into the cloak of imam abu hamid al ghazali.
you are the substantive prof of theology at the harvard uni of that time, madrasah al nazimiyyah in baghdad. you could outdebate and out reason anyone on issues of ugama and the sciences. 

you know you were damn good that luminaries from christianity are there in numbers at the back of your lecture hall to listen to you, so that they can bring nuggets and pearls of wisdom back to their 'ummah' back home. such was your excellence.

but when you went home to your family, in the privacy of you home, in the wee hours of most mornings, you felt a nagging existential vacuum.

that was imam al ghazali, at the height of his existential crisis, before he left for the desert of greater syria in search of meanings.

enjoy listening to prof tj winter's short discourse on imam al ghazali, and if i can, i want you guys to listen to an hour discourse on 'thinking', courtesy of a persanteren tok guru who was giving a 10 hour discourse over 10 sessions in down under, indonesia.
it is from ' kitab at tafakkur ', a kitab within  al ghazali's ihya.

yes, you may be surprised.....thinking is very much encouraged in islam.
infact it is the highest form of remembrance!

we, as an ummah have not done much thinking for almost a century now!



dr nik howk


.................................

tj winter on imam abu hamid al ghazali,

part 1.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMWEggenO3c

part 2.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmNyOCCnZgg


...............

shaykh hamza yusuf on '' the critical importance of al ghazali in our time  ''

[     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoRRoqVXeGw  ]

...............................................


a discourse on tafakkur, on kitab al tafakkur , imam abu hamid al ghazali...


part 1.      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSLzHgsV5Os


part 2.       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpUl6Xe3D7M


part 3.       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufbeU4_1gsw


part 4.       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF5nUDLMmCI


part 5         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqNOZOvyPys


part 7         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwlsU7oqCOg


part 8           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_iUjOSS3n8


part 9           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgU14bMUo2g&t=2392s


part 10        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAsZ9MmI8VU


part 11        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxRSFYd6pF0&t=9s



part 12          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFZdPcv7oMw&t=2s



part 13          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yfJSHj-S4E




part 14           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGZ7p2oKG9w



part 15        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ-DhBPEINQ



part 16         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF-A9-Vq2tI



part 17         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhwXKEmZFZo



part 18          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW7jq0JbTL8
       

Key To The Garden : 'Contentment'....Shaykh Dr Abdullah Hakim Quick

Shaykh Dr Abdullah Hakim Quick, a historian and educationist based and domiciled in Canada, is proud to state that he is one of the 'sons' of former slaves. In this khutbah he 'joins' the dotted lines between happiness and contentment with the unlikely state of  suffering, forbearance and 'sabar'[ endurance] in the down and out of previous societies in the past.....sons and ancesteors of former slaves and slaves who endured the burden of suffering from the white men of the  West whose watc- word was to  'plunder and rob' the yellows , the black and the sawo matang' of the East and the Far East. 
Indeed the 'white men of the West' had and has been bad news from time immemorial till the present time.

Before, 'he' was trying to free the impoverished, uncultured heatherns from false gods and demigods and introduce to the cleansing vision of Jesus Christ and  the nebulous and indefensible concept of Trinity.

....now in  modern times, in the name of DEMOCRACY and HUMAN RIGHTS.
Before 'he' was after gold, slaves,  pepper and nutmeg.
Now , it is the black gold........and the continued use of the U .S dollar in energy tradings!

Before it was the 'Knights of the 'Templer'.

Now in the guise of NATO, UN, NGO's, political correctness  and what have you.

At the end of the day, with respect to contentment/happiness, as the shaykh  concedes , the world has to come one whole circle:

Happiness is  not about any profound psychological endpoints; neither is it about a healthy body with a thick fat bank balance; or a young beautiful wife waiting at home in a nice big bungalow and a Bentley Turbo in the garage.

It is about sabar, endurance, ridza, cognizance of revealed wisdom. it is about returning to HIM.

Hasan al-Basri, a  tabi'in period sufi saint endeared and respected by millions during his time put it simply for the poor and the unschooled of his time, a 'trinity' of sort :

It is about reading, understanding, and tafakkur around  the QUR'AN, 

constant remembrance of HIM through ZIKR, 

and the OBLIGATORY PRAYERS.....fullstop.

He was no philosopher. 
Not a fuqaha.......His is about 'experiential islam'.

Otherwise happiness and contentment can only be acheived by the elites and the high iq's

God is great.....anyone , just anyone can be happy [ or sad, it is a double edged sword ! ] be he a poor road sweeper, a slave, a 'pm' or mrs 'pm', or a mighty king with millions at his beck and call.

Click here,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kokGvgPTGv4&feature=relmfu



'' la khaufun alaihim wala hum yah zanun.."
there is nothing to fear and grieve about , in this life and the next....



''.. O mankind! Eat of that which is lawful and wholesome in the earth, and follow not the footsteps of the devil. Lo! he is an open enemy for you. (168) He enjoineth upon you only the evil and the foul, and that ye should tell concerning Allah that which ye know not. (169)  ''    [  al baqarah  ]




.........................................................................................................

1)

Evolution in Islam

Evolution in Islam The Quran is clearly in support of a gradual creation of humans from the ground up involving several distinct st...

Key To The Garden : ' Hasbunallah wa ni' mal Wakeel '

Timothy John "Tim" Winter (born 1960), also known as Abdal Hakim Murad, is a British Muslim researcher, writer and teacher. His profile and work have attracted media coverage both in the Muslim World and the West. Conversant in both traditional Islamic scholarship and Western thought and civilization, Winter has made contributions on many Islamic topics.

Timothy Winter also known as Abdal Hakim Murad
Born	Timothy John Winter 1960 (age 60 plus) London, England
Residence	Cambridge, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Other names	Abdal Hakim Murad
Alma mater	Pembroke College Cambridge Al-Azhar University SOAS University of London University of Oxford
Occupation	Islamic scholar, author, teacher

He is one of my favourite speakers  and teachers on Islam. Steeped in scholarship, very well educated and proficient in Arabic, the tool of his profession, he has spent many years in the Middle East.

His magnum opus was the very readable translation of Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's , " Kitab Dzikr Al Mawt Am Ma Ba' Du "  or in the English form,  meaning ' Remembrance Of Death And The After Life '. Big volume treatise, as always with al-Ghazali, with many chapters detailing in the minutaie the moment before death and the eternity that follows in the afterlife, both before and after the 'Sirat'.

Highly recommended reading for all of us  in this very  ' material ' 21st century. for all 'believers, non believers, agnostics and atheists included.

I got my copy from a British book store while waiting for the 'tube' at a red light district in Central London......King's Cross Station [ of all the places! ] some 20 years back. Jeffrey Archer, senior British parliamentarian, writer and serious contender to the throne of fast aging Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, was caught ' kerb crawling '  in his Jaguar at King Cross six months earlier and that put paid to his very public career as a serious writer and  his high political aspirations as the sole claimant to the throne' just vacated by the iron lady. 

And that is ' Ungodly  Britain ', the ' land of the kuffar ', where one can sleep with a lady you just met for tea an hour ago, but lo and behold, if you are Sir Archer or you are Jeremy Iron, don't be caught with your pants down!

Elsewhere in the Muslim hinterland, one can escape with murder!...and a couple of million ringgit less than a billion of ? some arabian's prince money in your current account!

But this is a  gross digression from the 'straight path'......
Let us listen to this good shaykh instead............

















Prof TJ Winter on ' Reliance on Allah ' :-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oxi8lJXqLP8



....allah is a god of rahmah, rahim, latiff , jameel and salam but HE is also a god of riguer:..
al jamal; al muntakim, al malik and al mutakabbir......


......al  qalb bu salim, a sound heart, at the end of the day, is all that matters.