Begging is Not Commended

God's Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, declared:

'A giving hand is better than a receiving one.'

Although Islam recommends helping the poor and encourages the wealthy to spend for the poor out of their wealth, it does not commend begging and requires fit and able people to work for their livelihood. It regards working for one's own and one's family's livelihood as of equal value with worship of God.

Once a poor, well-built man came to God's Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, and said:

— I am a needy, poor man. Please help me with charity.

The Messenger asked the man:

— Do you have anything in your home?

— Yes, I do. I have a long robe which I cover myself with when sleeping. Also, I have a wooden cup for drinking out of.

The Messenger told the man to fetch the robe and the cup. When the man came back with these two things, the Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, asked those near him:

— Who would like to buy these things?

One of those present offered one dirham for them, another offered two. The Messenger gave this money to the poor man and said:

— Spend one of these two dirhams to meet your urgent needs, and with the other buy a rope and axe and come straight here.

The man did as the Messenger told him to. The Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, told him:

— Go and cut some of the dried branches of the date-palms outside Madina. Take them to the market and sell them. Continue doing this for fifteen days and come here again.

The man who had thought himself unable to do anything for his livelihood left the city and cut dried branches off the date-palms that had no owners. At the end of the fifteenth day a well-dressed man came to God's Messenger. The Messenger asked him:

— How are you?

The man replied:

- Praise be to God, O Messenger of God! I have earned ten dirhams. With some of that money I bought back the things I had sold and met the needs of my family. As for the remnant, I bought this garment that you see.

The Messenger responded:

— It is much more esteemed for one to earn one's livelihood by carrying wood on one's back than by begging.

From: The Way to Truth 

Racial Equality

Once Abu Dharr, an Arab from the tribe of Ghifar, became angry with Bilal of Abyssinia, the freed slave of Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with them. The dispute intensified until Abu Dharr in his fury said to Bilal, "Son of a black woman!" Bilal complained to the Prophet, peace be upon him, who addressed Abu Dharr saying, "Did you call him a name reviling his mother? It appears that you still have traces of jahiliyyah [ignorance] in you!" Abu Dharr thought that jahiliyyah was a kind of sexual immorality or moral deviation and thus said, "At this old age, O Messenger of Allah?" The Prophet said in reply, "Yes, they are your brothers." Abu Dharr regretted what he had said and repented, and out of extreme repentance and humility requested Bilal to trample his face with his feet. This is the point which marks the line of demarcation between knowledge and ignorance. In other words, racial equality demarcates the real human civilization and the civilization of the jahiliyyah.

The civilization that does not make one race superior over another, or one colour over another is the civilization that the noble and intelligent humans build, and thus conscious noble humanity is pleased. The civilization which gives superiority to whites and degrades the black so that only the whites are happy and the coloured are in misery takes humanity back to the blind and dark ages. "You have traces of jahiliyyah in you" is a description of the jahili civilization which calls for racial discrimination and this is what Islamic Civilizations has fought in all fields of life - in the mosque, in the school, in the court, in the leadership and with friends and foe alike.

Compiled From:
"The Islamic Civilization"- Mustafa Sibai, pp. 66, 67

Connecting to Prayer

Praying five times a day can be a struggle for adult Muslims, but an even greater one for young people. At a time when texting and other technology offer fast-paced distraction, encouraging our youth to establish Salah can seem impossible.

But this pillar of Islam keeps us all grounded in our faith. It is that necessary daily reminder of Who we are accountable to, as well as Who is our greatest Benefactor. It keeps us connected to Allah in all circumstances, and it is a gift and obligation we must pass on to young Muslims.

Here are a few ways to start that process.

1. Set the example

As is the case with all other good habits, parents, mentors, teachers, and others young Muslims look up to must be praying themselves. But we need to not only be offering our prayers. We must also truly reflect the level of concentration and commitment it takes, by praying on time, doing our best to focus, and offering the prayers diligently.

2. Establish prayer in the home

Kids learn faith first and foremost from the family and within the home. This is where prayer as a way of connecting to Allah needs to be discussed and shown in practice. Make it a habit to pray in congregation when going to the Masjid is not possible. Avoid having everyone pray in their own little corner of the house. Start today by designating one space of the home for this purpose.

3. Don’t discourage even small steps toward prayer

Prayer is a long-term commitment that requires the kind of dedication that’s hard to muster for many older people, let alone young people distracted by the ding of texts on their phone or other issues. Praise even the performance of a short, two-Rakat prayer, and encourage youth to take it to the next level.

4. Don’t discount strength in numbers

Whenever possible, pray in congregation with other Muslims outside of the family, especially other youth. This can be at weekend school, or even joining one of the prayers at a full-time Islamic school with the administration’s permission. This will show that prayer isn’t something "weird" that only you and your family do. Rather, it is something other young Muslims do regularly, as well.

5. Make prayer time parent time

Spend a few minutes after each prayer with your young Muslim connecting, asking or answering questions about an issue of concern, or simply making it a time for hugs, jokes, and lighthearted hanging out.

Compiled From:"8 Ways to Connect Young Muslims to Prayer" - Samana Siddiqui

What We’ve Lost With the Demise of Print Encyclopedias

As the paperless future approaches, certain sorts of publications have inevitably moved into the all-digital realm faster than others. Most of us still prefer paper when it comes to beach novels, for instance, or the cherished volumes of our personal libraries. At the other extreme, scientific journals effectively went all-digital years ago, and thanks to GPS, maps and road atlases are quickly following. Last week saw another milestone: the symbolic funeral of paper encyclopedias, with the inevitable announcement that the Encyclopedia Britannica is ceasing print publication.

Encyclopedias, along with other reference works, would seem particularly obvious candidates for digitization. Paper encyclopedias are large, heavy, and expensive ($1,395 for the final print edition of Britannica). They are nowhere near as easily and thoroughly searchable as their digital counterparts. They cannot be easily updated, still less constantly updated. And they are far more limited in size. The 2002 Britannica contained 65,000 articles and 44 million words. Wikipedia currently contains close to four million articles and over two billion words (this information comes, of course, from Wikipedia).

David A Bell in The New Republic. Here

The Righteous Mind, Reason, Intuition and Islamic Dawah

You’re smart. You’re Muslim. You’re well informed. You think non-Muslims, non-believers are narrow-minded. You can’t understand why people worship statues, cow, film stars, sun, moon and etc etc. You figure they’re being duped. You’re wrong.

William Saletan in his article on the book "The Righteous Mind" by Jonathan Haidt unravels of the mystery behind rejection and acceptance. Excerpts from his review in The New York Times

In “The ­Righteous Mind,” Haidt seeks to enrich liberalism, and political discourse generally, with a deeper awareness of human nature. Like other psychologists who have ventured into political coaching, such as George Lakoff and Drew Westen, Haidt argues that people are fundamentally intuitive, not rational. If you want to persuade others, you have to appeal to their sentiments. But Haidt is looking for more than victory. He’s looking for wisdom. That’s what makes “The Righteous Mind” well worth reading. Politics isn’t just about ­manipulating people who disagree with you. It’s about learning from them.

The problem isn’t that people don’t reason. They do reason. But their arguments aim to support their conclusions, not yours. Reason doesn’t work like a judge or teacher, impartially weighing evidence or guiding us to wisdom. It works more like a lawyer or press secretary, justifying our acts and judgments to others.

To explain this persistence, Haidt invokes an evolutionary hypothesis: We compete for social status, and the key advantage in this struggle is the ability to influence others. Reason, in this view, evolved to help us spin, not to help us learn. So if you want to change people’s minds, Haidt concludes, don’t appeal to their reason. Appeal to reason’s boss: the underlying moral intuitions whose conclusions reason defends.

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Many of Haidt’s proposals are vague, insufficient or hard to implement. And that’s O.K. He just wants to start a conversation about integrating a better understanding of human nature — our sentiments, sociality and morality — into the ways we debate and govern ourselves. At this, he succeeds. It’s a landmark contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself.

But to whom is Haidt directing his advice? If intuitions are unreflective, and if reason is self-serving, then what part of us does he expect to regulate and orchestrate these faculties? This is the unspoken tension in Haidt’s book. As a scientist, he takes a passive, empirical view of human nature.

 William Saletan in The New York Times. Here