MUHAMMAD (peace be upon him) was the posthumous son of Abdullah and his wife, Aaminah, among the nobility of the Qurash tribe of Mecca whose line of descent reaches Prophet Ishmael, son of Prophet Abraham. Born in 570 AD, his mother died when he was 6 and was brought up by his paternal grandfather, Abdul Mutalib, and uncle Abu Talib. He was nursed by Halimah, who took the young Muhammd to her desert home for two years............ Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

THE ongoing campaign Malaysia is waging against corruption has gained momentum.  Tunku Abdul Aziz called it an "All-Malaysian duty" in which everyone should take part, regardless of political affiliation (NST, Jan  5). I would also add that it is an All-Muslim duty and a calling on the religious conscious of   Muslims of this country to support it. Playing a proactive role in this campaign is a veritable amal (right moral action) that the Quran repeatedly impresses on   Muslims -- an act also of great social benefit that elevates the standing of the ummah and Malaysia in the international community........... Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

The world needs a new Islamic leadership that is enlightened and is capable of addressing the peace and development needs of the ASEAN. This leadership that is pro-peace and prodevelopment must be well-versed with the inner resources of Islam, as derived from the Qur’an and from Islam’s rich history of leadership.......... Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

THE untimely death of Ashraf Hafiz Abdul Aziz at 26 and the difficulties he faced put many in a reflective mood as to what could have been done better to address his suffering when he was alive. By refusing to grant Ashraf his plea to change and register his name as Aleesha Farhana, the courts may have adhered to the letter of the law but it is questionable whether they were compassionate enough. If one were to learn a lesson, it would be to find better answers through suitable legislation and grant of flexibility in the adjudication of intensely humanitarian cases such as Ashraf's.......... Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

Modern man learns the wisdom of ecological equilibrium and environmental health the bitter way. It is also the expensive way. Not until he has seen with his own eyes the bitter fruits of his scientific and technological culture and of his extravagant life style does he come to realize how important ecological equilibrium and environmental health are to the survival of humankind on earth. The names of these bitter fruits are environmental pollution and ecological disasters. The modern industrialized West became the first sector of humanity in history to taste these bitter fruits, just as it was the first to have planted the “forbidden tree of secular knowledge” that had borne these fruits. It was most unfortunate for humanity that the rest of the world, including Muslim societies, had uncritically followed the footsteps of the West in planting and cultivating the same tree and reaping its fruits......... Download the full article in pdf attachment (below) size 4.0MB

Among non-Muslims both in the West and in the East Islam is widely perceived today as an exceptionally intolerant religion. It is viewed as intolerant of other religions, cultures, ways of life, and points of view. It is also viewed as critical of modern civilization. Muslims are generally seen as inclined to violence. “Islam has bloody borders!” claimed the late Samuel Huntington many years ago in his controversial book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.3) What he has sought to capture in these four words is the widespread belief in the West that Islam and Muslims somehow cannot coexist peacefully with other people of different beliefs and ways of life......... Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

The Arab uprising is still unfolding and uncertainties exist that may yet be clarified in the course of time. But one question that arises is over the relative absence of Islam in what has been seen so far.

 

Islam has been closely aligned with most of the reform movements in the Arab world during the independence and post-independence periods. Two other themes that have also featured, with varying degrees of consistency, are Arab nationalism (qawmiyyah Arabiyyah) and, for a brief period in the era of Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, socialism........ Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

Last December 17^th Mohamed Bouaziz, the unemployed Tunisian college graduate turned street vendor, set himself ablaze with gasoline after officials in his town of Sidi Bouzid prevented him from selling vegetables without permission. He never imagined that his final desperate act would ignite astonishing uprisings across the entire Middle East, forcing Presidents Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, and then Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, to abandon their decades-long rule of ruthless repression. Blasts of fresh air are invigorating the Middle East in the most profound transformation since the fall of the Ottoman dynasty........ Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

A SYARIAH High Court judge suggested at a seminar in Kuantan early last month that Malaysia should criminalise black magic and introduce a law to that effect, adding that the practice of black magic was becoming rampant, especially among the Malay community. This was not the first time such a proposal was made as a similar suggestion was advanced by the mufti of Selangor last December........ Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

SORCERY or witchcraft (sihr) is often equated with trickery aimed at conflating falsehood with the rational association of causes and effects.

Sorcery is difficult to define. Our knowledge of sihr and what is not within reach of our sense perception is also limited.

 

The available information in the scriptural sources of Islam also falls short of elaboration ondetail. Sihr may aim at inflicting harm on its object or at realising a benefit, and the sorcerer often resorts to irrational and impermissible means. Muslim scholars have differed on the reality of sihr........ Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

The introductory  remarks  that appear at the outset of this article draw attention to  the planetary crisis humanity is facing due to  the degradation and disturbance of its living environment. The succeeding discussion expounds the human- earth relationship in two parts, the first of which draws attention to a set of principles, beginning  with that of Divine Oneness (tawhid) and the vision it conveys of the common predicament of man with the rest of the created world. Then follows a review of  the Qur’anic principle of vicegerency of man (khilafah) in the earth which designates  humankind as a trustee and custodian of  its natural  environment. This is followed by a discussion of the principle of trust (amanah) in Islam which is closely related to khilafah......... Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

MUSLIM jurists have addressed the issue of an abandoned child (laqit) from different angles beginning with the existence of a basic obligation to save its life. There is general consensus that it is a collective obligation (fard kifa'i) of the community to save the abandoned child, and it is an obligation in the first place of the individual who finds it.

That obligation is elevated to an emphatic personal duty (fardu 'ayn) of the finder in the event of imminent fear over the death and injury of the child. This is due to the explicit Quranic emphasis on the sanctity of life contained in the injunction that "one who saves one life, it is as if he has saved the whole of humankind"........ Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

THE concept of the foundling has gripped the imagination over millennia. The story of Oedipus is about a foundling who doesn't know his background, and so ends up killing his father and marrying his mother.
Stories of foundlings speak to us about social status, and the degree of noble or ignoble birth determines our lives. Muslim scholarship over the centuries developed discussions about the social standing of foundlings........ Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

We are no longer in a Newtonian, mechanical universe, and we no longer think our purpose in life is to serve the factory and industry. But our schools were built for that old paradigm, and their structures and processes still serve the old master. In fact, “Education is the one institution in the last part of the twentieth and first part of the twenty-first centuries that hasn’t changed; almost all others have: business, transportation, communications, financial systems, trade, media, families, global culture. Certainly, our understanding of how people learn, through brain research and theories...... Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

NOTHING seems to be going right to lighten the darkness that is taking hold of Afghanistan.
June was the worst month for casualties among foreign troops, with 66 deaths, in the nine years they had been there to battle Islamic extremism and rescue the rubble-strewn country from decades of war.

 

The BBC tallied last month that roadside bombings had nearly doubled in the first quarter of the year from the same period last year, assassinations were up by half and suicide attacks by 100 per cent. More than a thousand have been killed in the first six months of the year....... Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

This article explores human dignity through a reading of the Qur’an and hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), the two most authoritative and widely venerated sources of Islam. It is presented in four sections, beginning with a review of the textual evidence on human dignity, to be followed by a similar review of God-man relationship, then also a discussion as to how the Qur’an guides and depicts as to how the humans should relate to one another while observant of each other’s dignity. The discussion proceeds to examine the juristic positions of the leading schools of Islamic law on the subject, and ends with a conclusion that underscores the effects of these guidelines on the realities of Muslim life...... Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

"LEADERSHIP challenges for the new era" was the subject of a plenary session at the sixth World Islamic Economic Forum in Kuala Lumpur. The topic generated a lively discussion among a panel of eminent speakers. Surin Pitsuwan, secretary-general of Asean, moderated and referred in his opening remarks to the Quranic phrase ulil-amr (those in charge of affairs, Q.4:59), raising the question as to who were the ulil-amr of today, who could usher us into the new era......... Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

The twin concepts of constitutionalism and democracy normally nurture and endorse one another, yet they are not the same and can, in certain circumstances, stand in a state of tension. Whereas democracy is focused on majoritarian rule, constitutionalism demands commitment to the rule of law.The United States and Europe tend to see drafting a constitution as a way towards a negotiated peace, especially in post-conflict situations. This may theoretically seem appealing, yet it could also run counter to its desired objectives and cause greate......... Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)

AISHAH had always dreamt of a good family life, with a great husband and four or five children running around. As luck would have it, she met a wonderful man, Kamil, and after a year they got married. Ten years later, they were still childless but happy. Recently, tragedy struck. Kamil who was in his mid-30s died of a heart attack, sparking an unexpected crisis for Aishah. The couple had always lived in Kamil’s family home. He was an ........ Download the full article in pdf attachment (below)