Qalu Lahu Khalafta Aqwala Shuyukh

Stages of the Revelation of Quraan

Essential to learning the history of the Quraan is the study of the stages of its revelation, which is usually referred to by the term "'Tanzeel' of the Quraan", literally, the descent or the 'sending down' of the Quraan from the Heavens to the Earth. Some of the aspects to be discussed in relationship to this would be the meaning of the 'Tanzeel' and why it happened in stages, what was revealed first and what was revealed last, and the significance of understanding the sequence in revealing the different parts of the Quraan, among others.

Certainly, the study of the 'Tanzeel' of the Quraan is one of the most important aspects of the Sciences of the Quraan, because it is related to the beginning of the last revelation, and to being certain of its descent from Allah, which is the foundation of believing in the Quraan as the Word of Allah that came from Him, as well as in the truthfulness of the Message of Prophet Muhammad (saws).

The Meaning of 'Tanzeel'

Lexically, the term 'Tanzeel' is derived from the Arabic root 'Nuzool', which means the descent or the movement from a high place down to a lower one. This is exactly what happened in the process of revelation where the Angel Jibreel (Gabriel) used to come down from the Heavens with a varying number of verses of the Quraan to deliver to Prophet Muhammad (saws). The exact nature of this 'Nuzool' and how Jibreel actually brought the Quraan with him are matters of the unseen, the details of which Allah chose not to clarify for us, perhaps because they involve matters that may be very difficult for humans to imagine or grasp. What we should understand is that this 'Nuzool' happened in a fashion that is befitting to the greatness and sacredness of the Word of Allah. Allah says about the Holy Quraan: “(It is) a Quraan which We have divided (into parts from time to time), in order that thou (O Muhammad) might recite it to people at intervals: We have revealed it by stages (in 23 years).” [17:106]

Was Abu Hanifah a Murji ?

[Answered by Shaykh Nasir al-‘Aql on his website] 

Q: Was Abu Hanifah a Murji like what al-Bukhari said in “At-Tarikh al-Kabir”? 

A: Yes, Abu Hanifah (rahimahullah) was a Murji from the Murjiah al-Fuqaha. This scholar’s slip however does not diminish his ability and status but it is not permissible to follow along in the irja because it clashes with the Salaf. He agreed in manhaj and the rest of the usul. 

Note: The Murjiah are of different types:

1. The Murjiah al-Fuqaha who say Imaan is belief in the heart and a statement upon the tongue but actions are not included into “Imaan”.
2. The Ash’ariyyah who say Imaan is Tasdeeq, affirmation of the heart only.
3. The Karamiyyah who say the opposite and that Imaan is a statement of the tongue only.
4. The Jahmiyyah who say Imaan is merely knowledge.

Story of Heraclius’ encounter with Islam

'Abdullaah ibn 'Abbaas narrated: “Abu Sufyaan ibn Harb informed me that Heraclius had sent a messenger to him while he had been accompanying a caravan from Quraysh. He was part of a delegation of merchants doing business in Sham (i.e., Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan) at the time, and this was when Allah's Apostle had a ceasefire with Abu Sufyaan and the rest of the Qurayshi infidels. So Abu Sufyaan and his companions went to Heraclius at Jerusalem. Heraclius called them into his court while having all the senior Roman dignitaries around him...
 
Note: Heraclius had received a message from the Prophet (saws) inviting him to Islam, and so he wanted to ask his own people about him.
 
... He called for his translator who, translating Heraclius's question, said to them: 'Who amongst you is closely related to the man who claims to be a Prophet?' Abu Sufyaan replied: 'I am the nearest relative to him (in the group).' Heraclius said: 'Bring him (i.e., Abu Sufyaan) close to me and make his companions stand behind him.' Abu Sufyaan added: 'Heraclius told his translator to tell my companions that he wanted to ask me some questions regarding that man (i.e., the Prophet) and that if I told a lie they (my companions) should oppose me.'
 
This meant that if Abu Sufyaan lied, his companions would have immediately indicated so.
 
Abu Sufyaan added: 'I swear by Allah! Had I not been afraid of my companions labelling me as a liar, I would not have spoken the truth about the Prophet. The first question he asked me about him was: 'What is his family status amongst you?'
I replied: 'He belongs to a noble family amongst us.'

ARTICLE : Next Bosnian Muslim Genocide NO ONE is Talking About!

When a former soldier of the army of Yugoslavia threw an explosive device onto the grounds of the United States Embassy in Montenegro last month, killing himself in a secondary suicide explosion, the media’s interest in this story more or less started and ended there.

While authorities are yet to establish a motive for the attack, it turns out the attacker was awarded a medal for military service by the indicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic, and even more significantly, the attack on the US embassy in Montenegro fits within a pattern of rising tensions in the Balkans, much of which is largely ignored in respective European and US press coverage.

“So, since Jan 1 we’ve seen a political assassination in Kosovo, a bombing attack in Montenegro and Russian-trained paramilitaries assisting the rearming of the Dodik regime in Bosnia Herzegovina. The temperature keeps rising in the Balkans but few in Brussels or Washington seem concerned,” says Jasmin Mujanovic, author of Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans.

Atop of all that is an ever more aggressive and imperialist Russia, asserting itself further and deeper into the region, laying the groundwork for another war in the region, one that has Bosnian Muslims fearing a return of the Serbian led genocide that killed approximately 80,000 Bosnian men, women, and children in the 1990s.

“The situation in Bosnia is very tense. We are afraid of the new war and we know very well that if the war starts, we will be the victims again — Muslims, of course. Great countries are playing again,” a Muslim citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who asked to be identified only by her first name out of fear of Serbian reprisal, told me.

Signs of Beneficial & Non-Beneficial Knowledge...

The Signs of Non-Beneficial Knowledge:

An indicative sign of this non-beneficial knowledge is that it breeds haughtiness, pride and arrogance in the one who possesses it. And it causes him to seek after grandeur and elevation in the worldly life and to compete for that. It also leads one to pursue competing with the scholars, arguing with the foolish and turning the people’s attention his way. And it has been reported that the Prophet (saws) said that whoever seeks knowledge for these reasons, then “the Fire, the Fire.” [Ibn Majah - Sahih]

It could be that some of the people who possess these types of knowledge claim to know Allah, seek after Him and abstain from everything apart from that, however, their goal behind that is for nothing else but to gain a high place in certain people’s hearts, such as that of the rulers and their likes. Perhaps their goal is to have these people think good thoughts about them or to gain large gatherings of followers or to have them venerate them because of that.

Another sign of this is when one openly claims to have a close relationship with Allah, i.e. claims to be a wali, as the People of the Scripture would do, and as the Qaraamitah (They are one of the deviant factions that emerged from the Raafidah whose adherents follow Abu Sa’eed Bahraam Al-Hanabi who was the founder of the Qaraamiti belief. They believed that ‘Abdullaah bin Al-Haarith Al-Kandi was a prophet and so would worship him. And they have other corrupt beliefs apart from that.), Baatiniyyah (This is a name given to a group that splintered from the Isma’eeli Shiites. They believe that the entire Book of Allaah is open to reinterpretation and claim that it cannot be understood in its apparent (literal) form and so as a result they went astray. Their beliefs have influenced the Sufi movement, which claims that all of the Qur’aan has an apparent as well as a hidden meaning.) and their likes would assert for themselves.

Facebook: A global threat to minority Muslim communities !

In a new wave of religious violence, Muslim minority populations throughout Asia are living in fear of being lynched, assaulted, raped or killed by adherents of religious faiths so often associated with peace and tolerance. 

In Myanmar, more than 10,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed and another 600,000 displaced since Myanmar security forces and Buddhist extremist groups began carrying out what the UN described as "textbook ethnic cleansing" in August 2017.

In Sri Lanka, the government was forced to impose a state of emergency after Buddhist mobs began carrying out a wave of violence against Muslims all across the country, while India is experiencing levels of Hindu extremist violence against Muslims not seen in decades. 

Clearly there's nothing about the respective faiths - Buddhism and Hinduism - that should make their followers encourage hatred or violence towards followers of Islam, so there must be something else going on, and that something else appears - at least in part - to be Facebook.

In short, Facebook has now become an existential threat to Muslim minorities around the world.

"Facebook has now turned into a beast, and not what it originally intended," said Yanghee Lee, a United Nations United Nations investigator who described the social media platform as a vehicle for inciting "acrimony, dissension and conflict", and blamed it for driving the Rohingya Muslim genocide in Myanmar.

" Facebook posts that are meant to mischievously and intentionally victimise minorities gain great traction in places with low literacy rates "

"Everything is done through Facebook in Myanmar," she told reporters. "It was used to convey public messages but we know that the ultra-nationalist Buddhists have their own Facebook [accounts] and are really inciting a lot of violence and a lot of hatred against the Rohingya or other ethnic minorities," she said.