This brief essay is the first of several dealing with the Fort Hood tragedy. It is written by Shaykh J. Hashim Brown, an American Muslim convert to Islam. Shaykh Brown was blessed to have studied intimately with some of the greatest scholars of Syria for almost an entire decade. He…

You should know, may God have mercy on you, that truthfulness and sincerity are the foundations of every spiritual state. Patience, contentment, true asceticism, pleasure, and intimacy are branches of truthfulness. While sincerity branches out into certitude, fear, love, majesty, shyness, and magnifying [God]. Each believer has a place in…

We will now continue our translation from Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali’s work, Lata’if al-Ma’arif. In this section, he begins a discussion of the Hajj and some of its virtues, pp. 400-402. It is related in the two sound books (Bukhari and Muslim) on the authority of Abu Hurayra, from the Prophet,…

Imam Zaid’s translation and commentary on Imam al-Muhasibi’s, Treatise for the Seekers of Guidance, has been awarded as a finalist in the category of general spirituality by USA Book News Purchase: http://astore.amazon.com/nidpublishers-20/

Today was a beautiful day. After a period of days that brought howling winds and driving rain, the California autumn yielded to a bright, blue cloudless sky. The rain has transformed the vacant space to the side of our front yard into a lush carpet of soothing green grass. The…

This is the fouth and final installment of our translations concerning issues associated with fasting voluntarily in Shawwal from Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali’s book, Lata’if al-Ma’arif. This selection is from pages 397-400. We will continue with the virtues of Hajj from the same text, Insha Allah. The devotional acts of the…

This is the third part of our translation of excerpts from Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali’s section dealing with fasting in Shawwal from his book, Lata’if al-Ma’arif (pp. 394-396) “[Among the benefits of fasting six days in Shawwal] is that continuing to fast after Ramadan is a sign that the fast of…

Today (October 5, 2009), I was in Scotland for the Launch of Shaykh Abdul Aziz Ahmed’s Book, Living with Blindness: Lessons from the Life of Imran Sabir, who passed away this past March after struggling his entire life with the devastating effects of LOGIC Syndrome, a rare genetic disease. I…

Abu Ya’la al-Mawsili relates a Hadith with an unbroken chain from Usama bin Zaid, that he said: “I used to randomly fast months during the year. The Prophet, peace upon him, said to me, ‘What about Shawwal?!’” Thereafter, as soon as Usama celebrated ‘Id al-Fitr, he began fasting Shawwal until…

The following passage is exerpted from the chapter on Shawwal in Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali’s work, Lata’if al-Ma’arif. It gives us insight into a number of issues related to fasting six days of Shawwal, the lunar month that follows Ramadan, pp. 389-392. Imam Muslim relates from the narrations of Abu…