Naqshbandiya Foundation for Islamic Education

The Naqshbandiya Foundation for Islamic Education (NFIE) is a non-profit, tax exempt, religious and educational organization dedicated to serve Islam with a special focus on Tasawwuf(Sufism),

Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Shaykh Abdul Hakim Murad explores his book "Travelling Home: Essays on Islam in Europe" hosted by Makiz Ansari. ISRA Academy ,Australia , June 16,2022



YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/Z8tkzr8tYhk

This conversation was held as part of the inaugral Sydney Muslim Writers Festival organised by ISRA Academy in 2022. The festival aims to provide a space for Muslim writers and thinkers to discuss and share their experiences and celebrate the growing literature of the Muslim community. Shaykh Abdul Hakim Murad explores his book "Travelling Home: Essays on Islam in Europe" hosted by Makiz Ansari. Abdal Hakim Murad, is an English academic, theologian and Islamic scholar who is a leading proponent of Islamic neo-traditionalism. His work includes publications on Islamic theology, modernity, and Anglo- Muslim relations, and he has translated several Islamic texts.

Book: "Travelling Home : Essays on Islam in Europe." A forceful study of Islamophobia in Europe, considering survival strategies for Muslims on the basis of Qur'an,Hadith and the Islamic theological , legal and spiritual legacy.

How should we react to the new Islamophobic movements now spreading in the West? Everywhere the far right is on the march, with nationalist and populist parties thriving on the back of popular anxieties about Islam and the Muslim presence. Hijab and minaret bans, mosque shootings, hostility to migrants and increasingly scornful media stereotypes seem to endanger the prospects for friendly coexistence and the calm uplifting of Muslim populations.

In this series of essays Abdal Hakim Murad dissects the rise of Islamophobia on the basis of Muslim theological tradition. Although the proper response to the current impasse is clearly indicated in Qur’an and Hadith, some have lost the principle of trust in divine wisdom and are responding with hatred, fearfulness or despair. Murad shows that a compassion-based approach, rooted in an authentic theology of divine power, could transform the current quagmire into a bright landscape of great promise for Muslims and their neighbours.

Reviews:

“Dust off your dictionary and dive in! Travelling Home is a wild, invigorating and delightfully erudite ride through the political, social, psychological, theological and semantic landscape of European Islam as it is now. Pitched at a Muslim readership, this collection of essays forms in aggregate a brilliant and incisive analysis of the position of Muslims in a Europe ‘surging rapidly in a nationalist direction’ with their indigenous Muslim populations ‘viewed by increasing numbers as a Dark Other fit only to be securitised and stigmatised, and perhaps, in the dreams of some, banished from Europe’s walled garden.’

More importantly, the book proposes a new, constructive approach. The author, who has been on the frontlines of Muslim affairs in Europe for the better part of thirty years, makes a forceful and nuanced argument for a return to a ‘traditional Islam’ which employs, ‘the cumulative wisdom of the Muslim centuries in all its amplitude’ in an attempt ‘to devise an uncompromising theory of Islamic belonging in the European homeland of the late modern melée’.

In the process he takes aim at, well, just about everyone, and he takes no prisoners. European Islamophobes in ‘an already confused Europe’, Islamists, Muslim extremists redefined as tanfiris – those who make Islam repellent, ‘the continued prominence of race-temple Islam in [ethnocentric] community leadership’ and Muslim leaders ‘whose highest ambition is to have their photograph taken beside an MP’ are all taken out in this scathing and witty take down of the real barriers to positive change. In practice, he posits, Muslims need to replace a ‘reactive identity-religion with its desire for status and revenge driven by ego’ and an externalised Islam, with a revival of the awareness of the ‘presence, power and compassion of God’ in the profound and quintessential tradition of Islamic spirituality.

Travelling Home is an essential and exhilarating read.”

— MICHAEL SUGICH, author of Hearts Turn and Signs on the Horizons.

Source: https://quilliampress.com/book/travelling-home-essays-on-islam-in-europe/

Available at Amazon :https://www.amazon.com/Travelling-Home/dp/1872038204

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Obituary of Imam Sohaib Nazeer Sultan (d. 4/16/21) - Shabbir Agha Abbas - MPAC



January 15, 2021, CelebrateMercy live streamed a free webinar with Imam Sohaib Sultan. In this segment of the program, Imam Sohaib gave a very personal 20-minute talk on his current journey with an aggressive, terminal cancer and how the Prophet's ﷺ lessons on death and dying have helped him with this struggle. His talk was followed by an open 20-minute question & answer session.


Mar 19, 2021 Imam Sohaib Sultan delivered his final bayyan at our online Jummah gathering on March 19, 2021. In his email to the community, he announced: "Today, I'm sorry to be writing to inform you that, in consultation with my team of doctors, we have decided that any attempt at containing the cancer is causing a quicker demise than helping. As such, sadly, with my family we've decided to focus entirely on giving me the best quality of life for however short many months are left. As such, Imam Sohaib intends for this to be his last bayyan as he takes leave from Princeton University."

 Apr 17, 2022


Reflections - Arshe Ahmed

Monday, June 27, 2022

Sunday, June 26, 2022

“The Luminous Virtues of the Living Sages of Islam”: Michael Sugich & Peter Saunders- John Templeton Foundation

“The Luminous Virtues of the Living Sages of Islam” is a multi-faceted, multi-media project aiming to address the loss of the spiritual dimension of Islam, which has been a major contributing factor to the rise of both extremism and atheism in the Muslim world. The embodiment of spirituality and beautiful character is the enlightened sage who in traditional societies was the role model, or exemplar, for ordinary Muslims in every community. The aim of the project is to re-introduce these saintly men and women to Muslim and interested non-Muslim audiences through a series of beautifully designed Exemplars in our Time photographic essays on the lives of recent sages from the Islamic tradition who imparted and embodied the perfection of virtue, wisdom, knowledge and illumination. The authors of each of the essays are all distinguished scholars, writers and researchers and recognized experts on this subject. Most have had direct contact with the exemplars they will write about. Nine concise, pictorial biographies will be published on the lives of some of the greatest living Muslim sages of the 20th and 21st centuries. A short-subject video will be produced to introduce the publication series and serve as a prototype for future short subject videos on individual exemplars. A dedicated website will become a repository for content on the spiritual exemplars of Islam, which will include commentary, podcasts, lectures and teaching materials. Social media sites will be set up to promote the awareness of exemplars in our time. An educational outreach program will encourage Muslim educators to use the biographies as a way of introducing the subject of spirituality into their curricula. The project aims to change the contemporary narrative to revive confidence in Islam as a way of compassion, tolerance and wisdom and a restoration of hope to encourage a generation of young people aspiring to noble character through the true practice of Islam.

Source:https://www.templeton.org/grant/the-luminous-virtues-of-the-living-sages-of-islam

Friday, June 24, 2022

 OBITUARY: Efendi Hazretleri Mahmut Ustaosmanoğlu, Shaykh Mahmud Efendi of Turkey -Shaykh Muhammad bin Yahya al-Husayni al-Ninowy


Inna Lillah wa Inna Ilayhi Raji'oon.

Efendi Hazretleri Mahmut Ustaosmanoğlu, known as Shaykh Mahmud Efendi of Turkey passed on earlier today in Istanbul after about 93 years spent in learning, teaching, guiding and struggling.
The Shaykh, Rahimahu'Allahu Ta'ala started with memorizing the Holy Qur'an then attending Madrasah to gain knowledge, and eventually became the leader of İsmailağa jamia of the Naqshbandi-Khalidiyya Sufi Ṭarīqah centered in Çarşamba, Istanbul.
In 1954 his Shaykh and Murshid Efendi Hazretleri Ali Haydar (photo below, d. 1380 H.) appointed him as the imam of the İsmailağa Mosque. Ali Haydar Efendi happens to be the Shaykh of our late Shaykh Muhammad Emin Sirac as well. Ali Haydar Efendi has an attributed saying that says: If all the books of the 4 Madh'ahib perish, I can write them all again from my memory. İsmailağa Mosque and the whole surrounding area, became a beacon of light in Istanbul. It is one of the most beautiful areas in Istanbul where upon entering the neighborhood you feel you are back in the Ottoman era and it feels more like Islambul more than Istanbul.
It is one of the stops I try to make every time I am blessed to be in Hazret Eyup Sultan's territory (Sayyiduna Abu Ayyub al-Ansari) radiya'Allah Ta'ala anhu.
The Shaykh was blessed to transform lots of young people and point them towards the Prophetic Sunnah through the Sufi Naqshbandi way. The Sufi way: that brought the light of Islam to millions around the world with love, afforded all human beings dignity, and insisted that violence of any kind (including intellectual terrorism) is rejected. Despite that, he was subject to multiple assassination attempts, they managed to murder his son-in-law and then one of his most important students.
I had the honor over the years to meet him, and in one occasion I mentioned the following poem in Turkish about the Naqshbandi Tariqah (attributed to Imam Rabbani), which was greeted by a beautiful smile and short relevant commentary. The poetry is:
Der tarik-i Nakşibendî lazım âmed çâr terk: (The Naqshbandi Tariqah requires you to do four abandonments).
1- Terk-i dünya, (abandon seeking Dunya)
2- terk-i ukbâ, (abandon seeking Akhira. Akhira is a creation. Seek The Creator instead, and He gives you the Dunya and AKhira).
3- terk-i hestî, (abandon seeking self)
4- terk-i terk" (abandon abandonment itself).
"Der tarik-i aczmendî lazım âmed çâr çiz: (The Tariqah of the helpless requires you to have four things)
1-Fakr-ı mutlak, (Absolute neediness).
2- acz-i mutlak, (Absolute helplessness).
3- şükr-ü mutlak, (Absolute thankfulness).
4- şevk-i mutlak, ey aziz" (Absolute compassion) O' beloved one.
Subhana'Allah he was on my mind lately having heard that he was hospitalized, while planning to be in Istanbul in the next few days. But this is how Dunya is, Al-BᾹQĪ is only HŪ.
Like our Turkish brothers say in Turkish:
Âlimin ölümü, âlemin ölümü gibidir.
Please join me in making Du'a that Allah Ta'ala blesses His slave Mahmut Ustaosmanoğlu, forgives him, accepts him, gives him a Manzil Mubarak, Parole him into His Jannah, and assemble him with in the company of the righteous, gather him with Sayyiduna Rasool'Allah ﷺ and us all with them, and may Allah Ta'ala grant Türkiye and the whole Ummah lots of enlightened Rabbani Ulama and change our Haal to the best of Haal. Inna Lillah wa Inna Ilayhi Rajioon.
Rûhu için el fâtihah.. June 23,2022