Qur'an

And also prohibited to you are all married women except those who your right hand possess (slaves or war captives). [This is] the decree of God upon you. Quran 4:24 (partial verse) If it’s the idea of Islam condoning slavery; all it is doing is revealing the situation that existed in the 7th century. It’s very easy for us living in the 21st century to think that slavery is wrong and there’s no place for it in the world. But we forget the sacrifices that many people had gone through in order to…

Sharia is the law of Islam and it is Islam’s legal system which is derived from both the Holy Quran which is the Islam’s central text, the Sunnah (the practice and teachings of the prophet Muhammad) and also from the fatwas which are the rulings of the Islamic scholars. Sharia is an Arabic word which means: “The clear, well-trodden path to water.” Sharia law acts as a code for living that all Muslims should adhere to, including prayers, fasting and donation to poor. It aims to help Muslims…

The fastest growing religion in the world is Islam, so why is it that the hijab is such a controversial issue? Both western and eastern societies have different opinions on how Muslim women should dress, whether or not it concerns them. The common factor in instances where the hijab is a prevalent issue is not the women themselves, but rather the groups around them. The perspectives of those who do not support the hijab are compared to the experiences and outlooks of Muslim women in this…

Some Basic and Key Rules, Issues and Virtues of Ramadan Kareem As I already described about Fasting and about the month of Ramadan in my previous published article “Fasting (Roza). The 3rd Pillar of Islam”, now I am going to share some basic rules, issues and virtues of Ramadan Kareem in this article. Fast (Roza) will be broken from the following acts/things, and in result Qaza and the Penalty (Kaffarah) will become Obligatory:  Intentionally eat or drink something.  Make sexual relation…

The veiled respondents' accounts of wearing hijab conform to the pro-veiling gender discourse explicated above. Many of the veiled women invoke various sorts of religious imagery and theological edicts when asked about their motivations for veiling. (Bartkowski, To Veil or Not to Veil, 2000) In addition to providing religious rationales for wearing the veil, many of the women who wear hijab also invoke the discourse of masculine-feminine difference to defend the merits of veiling. For several…

Muhammad and the Believers presents us with a historical narrative of the early life of Islam and its formation. The five chapters inform the reader with the necessary exposition and background as well as subtle and reoccurring criticisms. While Donner makes it clear that not every story, reading, and text in the Quran is believable, they are in fact important as they give us insight and understanding. The book presents itself as a historical reading yet is familiar enough for the average reader…

In the passage, “Islam-Its Origins and Practice” by Richard Wormser, the author begins to introduce to us what is Islam. Wormser started from the very beginning by speaking about how Islam was brought down to Prophet Muhammad, the last prophet in Islam. He explains how angel Gabriel was sent down to the Prophet, and revealed the first words of the Quran to him. From there he was told he was a messenger of God and began to preach Islam to his tribe of Quraysh. The idea that was sent across was,…

There 's a pestilential voice in my head that keeps on pestering me about the choices I 've made in life. What if you had done this differently? It says; and then gets me pondering over everything I 've come across in life. Maybe if I had acted a bit maturely, a bit reasonably at times, things would have been different. Maybe, just maybe I would have been a completely different person. Life could have had shaped me disparately. I would have been someone else. Should 've, would 've,…

BLACK STONE IN MECCA Introduction The Black Stone is known as ‘al-Hajar-al-Aswad’ in the Arabic language and is the most Holy object for the Muslims which is still present in its original and ancient form. It is located in one of the cornerstones of Ka’aba Sharif, which is the Holy stone building for the Muslims. The building is surrounded by the ‘Masjid-al-Haram’, which to the Muslims is known as the grand mosque. The Black Stone has been fixed in the wall of the Ka’aba Sharif at a distance…

Early Islamic humanists put a great deal of importance into the acquisition and dispersion of knowledge. However, there comes to be alteration in the meaning of knowledge through the years and what the term exactly entails. Viewing the description of knowledge from the conservative perspective of the Hadith scholars and then from the collective epistemology of al-Kindi demonstrates this transition. Eventually this largely impacts the universalism of Islamic philosophy and the search for the…