Finally found the time...

Al Hamdu wash-shukru kulluhoo lillahi rabbee wa rabbukum. Wa salaam wa salaatu alaa khaatimul-anbiyaa.

Assalamu alaikum all. Just finished off a tense set of corrections to a chapter of my thesis which had really crowded out any free time to address you all. After several restrained correspondences with my examiner, in order to ascertain what precisely he was asking for and discovering a previously hidden 'advanced' search facility on a publisher's website and now realising why he keeps finding obscure articles, I am in need of a break.

Ursalan visits

It was an eventful weekend, given that I had the pleasure of hosting Ursalan's visit to Lahore. Yes, that Ursalan. It's actually amazing how he tracked my contact down. A simply google for my name and LUMS and voila, he had my extension (and confirmed that this website was indeed not accessible within Pakistan). Al Hamdulillah, he's fine, married, and in Jehlum at the moment. I had the pleasure also of having him in our Saturday hadith circle tackling the issue of a person who does not pray.

Sh. Nuh Keller.

But you await details of Sh. Nuh's visit. So i will oblige. Sh. Nuh was holding a series of seminars over that weekend on the theme "Sufism in Islam". I only was able to attend the first Fri. night session due to personal commitments rather than anything else. We sat awaiting the start after the isha prayers at this (banquet) hall in the Avari Hotel. It was quite an elite assortment of people it seems. Admittance was only be invitation, and my neighbour seemed to have applied for/recieved a few so thus yours truly found a spot. Yes, there was partitioning between the brothers/sisters section.

Then suddenly everybody got up and a person walked through the brothers section up to the stage. He then sat without a chair before us on the stage (if I recall correctly) and then only did the naas sit. The people awaited his first words which did not come too easily. He said 'Fatihah', and everybody started reciting the surah under their breath. After some delay then, he spoke in very low, almost a mumble, and after a while a sister did request that he speak up.

The subject of the talk was very general. I would love to give details but I fear I may convey without proper recollection the facts. In a nut shell, he was expressing what he had learnt to be the Sufi path. It all seemed quite uncontroversial. If you ignored the names of the Sufi shuyukh, there was no real problem with the content. Encouragement towards pure tawakkul and becoming of the people who through the heart they bring to worship are able to get the 700 rewards as opposed to the 10 rewards for the same act. This is essentially the sufi way - to go beyond the average Muslim and getting close to Allah. He read from a Shaykh of his Shadhilee tariqa, but nothing really new in terms of concept. He went through the concept of Ihsaan being worshipping Allah as if you see Him. It wasn't a very major thing in his speech but curiously he said "you see Him, the pronoun doesn't refer to an attribute but to Him"...why would he say that? Critically no real mention of "dhikr" methods, etc.

We did get a break in the middle, when all of a sudden everybody was asked to stand up and say fatihah again.

There were Q&A's. A question about suicide bombers (!?) in which he basically replied stating that according Abu Hamid al-Ghazaali there are 5 maqasid of Shariah, and that the one of life should only be compromised, as with any haram issue, if there is a compelling. He said, in his understanding of the opinions of the Shuyukh he had access to (emphasising he himself wasn't a mufti) there wasn't really a compelling reason.

He gave a refereshing answer to the issue of Sufi's being people who were not practical. He replied with a funny example that there were some strange types of Sufi's out there, yes, but in his own tareeqah he does not recollect anybody who begged and instead all of them went to great extents to earn their living by their own hands. He himself earnt money translating texts.

There was another question... but now I forget what it was.

There were meant to be morning and evening sessions to follow. He said the morning sessions would address the more "metaphysical" issues while the evenings were meant to be general. I think the final statement says it all: "... so if you want to bring your Wahabi brother-in-law then invite him to the evening sessions." (or words to that effect... the Wahabi brother-in-law definitely being his own!).

Mithai

I heard that you guys finally got the mith-hai.... contrary to rumors it was NOT sent by DHL to Manchester. I was advised that Sh. Na'eem's daughter was not well at the time, thus the delay. How is she now by the way? Anyway, al hamdulillah glad you enjoyed it all with thanks to Tahir for taking responsibility for this task. I'm sure protecting it Qamar would have been the greatest challenge. I'm told somebody took some snaps of the Shaykh helping himself to laddooos... well... I know Abu Eesa's blog is competition in terms of exposure but I would consider uploading such photos myself... maybe with a few "improvements"....

Again jazakumullahu khairen and do make du'a. And thanks to all who continually verify that indeed this blog is readable in the UK at least...take care all of you

wassalam

Abdullah

A Paki ban on blogspot domain

Al Hamdulillah wassalaatu wassalamu ala rasoolihi. Assalamu alaikum all.

Firstly apologies for the delay (yes, i know, again!!). I can only attribute this to health reasons. So again this is going to be short. The Sh. Nuh Kellar story will have to wait.

But I thought it might interest you that the Pak. authorities have blocked access to any websites belonging to the "blogspot. com" domain. As a result I can't view my website to confirm that all my blogs in the last 3 weeks have been published. It's to do with some 13-14 websites on this domain (amongst the 4 million!!) that were publishing pro-cartoons material. As a result, in typical Paki fashion, they have blocked the whole domain!! I can't even access Abu Eesa's blogs now (even propheticguidance.co.uk doesn't work as it redirects to the blogspot domain).

Actually I'm not sure whether my blogs are being published as well. Could some of you kindly comment some feedback if you can read this blog??? Else I have no way of knowing. The publishing site has a different domain name (www.blogger.com) so it seems that is working. But the blog itself... don't know.

Anyway guys. Got to go... wassalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah.

Abdullah

Sorry for delayed post

Assalamu alaikum all,

Al Hamdulillah, may Allah reward you all for your du'as on the new job. Believe me, I am deeply touched by the congrats from all quarters. May Allah accept and may Allah put barakah in all that you are doing as well. I am especially grateful for the posted comment that reminded me that this should not only be a matter of teaching the worldly issues but also those of the next life.

Sh. Nuh Keller was in town this week and I had the honour of receiving an invite and going to the first daras in his series of duroos here in Lahore Avari Hotel (at last some real Lahori news outside DHA I hear you sigh!).

But as with all good plugs that hope to generate maximum impact, I will delay the actual details of that post to an upcoming post, which should hopefully be counted as last weeks post.

Other than that we did complete the 2nd hadith in the 40 Nawawi that we are doing. But something has to change drastically if more people are to benefit from this. I don't think the contacts of the person named in the earlier comments is a practical strategy.

Right now I have to get to work so this will have to serve as a filler until then. Take care you all.

wassalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah

Abdullah

P.S. No news on manchester!!!??? A little bird told me it snowed!! You guys are very lazy in providing valid feedback to the posts.

First week of employment

Al Hamdulillahi rabbil 'aalameen, wasallahu wa sallim alaa nabiyyina Muhammad.

So it's been my first week at LUMS Business School and I guess you might be wondering how it the place.

Al Hamdulillah, it's a very good working environment. The Dean of my school is a graduate of MIT and has his PhD from U. Penn. He's been at LUMS since 1992. But the catch is he is with the TJ's and, yes, he does wear the uniform everyday. The same is the case of another senior lecturer in my group, again PhD & MSc from the States and 10 years of MBA teaching. The guy responsible for the very popular executive programmes is also an openly practising Muslim (with the number plate very visible behind him reading "TEXAN MUSLIM 85"). With a PhD and MBA from Texas, he's a cheerful guy Ma Sha Allah and assigned as my mentor. The shalwar kameez comes out on Fridays though, so I don't know what leaning we're talking about. In a nutshell, the people who are heading my school's faculty are very practising, senior people. Hence, at Asar prayers time the office is virtually empty. And there are many more practising people in the university. It seems the profile of 50% of faculty coming to LUMS are Pakistani's returning from the west due to a religious preference for Pakistan. Otherwise, with the qualifications these guys have, it seems puzzling why they persist to stay here.

But as far as the students are concerned, especially the undergrads, then one sees the creme de la creme of Fahsh on campus. Things are going from bad to worse in terms of women's fashion as half sleeves, no dupatta, or just plain jeans and shirts is becoming more and more common street wear. And this is worse at LUMS, given the fees they charge.

So it's interesting contrast between the profile of the faculty and the profile of the student population. Al Hamdulillah, myself, I would only be teaching the more maturer students in the MBA programme (insha'Allah), and my office and my research is a nice sanctuary away from all of this.

Nawawi Circle still taxiing along the runway

Al hamdulillah, have attained some regularity with the hadith circle. It's being held on Saturdays from 3-4pm (thus can't tune into Shaykh's morn. circle). We're half way through
the second hadith of Nawawi's forty. I'm not getting too much interaction going during the circles. It's hard steering the thing away from the slightly technical look that one find's in Zarabozo's book. Requires a lot of reading and synthesis to get to the issues that stimulate the minds and the hearts.

And what's new in Manchester?