Islamic Revival

I’m wishing my brothers and sisters – a belated productive and Khair [Good]-filled New Year! 1441 Hijri. Yesterday was the beginning of the New Year, 1441! That’s right, 1441 years have passed since the Prophet Muhammed (SAAW) made his historic hijra (migration) from Makkah to Yathrib, setting up the first Islamic State and society, to be known simply as “The City” (Al-Madinah). Now while Muslims are not commanded to celebrate the new year of the lunar calendar used by the Prophet Muhammed (SAAW), a new calendar year – as any event that occurs upon Muslims, should be used to reflect on our relationship with our Creator, Allah (SWT), through our personal rituals, our personal development as His servants, and our relationship with the Ummah. Most Muslims today would greatly benefit from reflection upon the origins of the Hijri calendar. You see, the Christians celebrate their New Year based upon a Gregorian calendar they borrowed from the Romans but setting their dat

From The Thinking Muslim Podcast: https://anchor.fm/thethinkingmuslim/episodes/Understanding-Indias-Citizenship-Law-with-Dr-Asher-Siddiqui-Delhi-e9ubks   "This week I speak to Dr Asher Siddiqui , an engineer from Delhi who has been at the epicentre of the  protests at Delhi’s Jamia Millia University. During the past two weeks, India has been rocked by countrywide demonstrations spontaneously driven by largely young Muslim’s energised by their mutual dislike for a new citizenship law designed to relegate Muslim’s as second class citizens. The law, the Citizenship Amendment Act, enables the state to fast track the citizenship of migrants but significantly omits Muslim’s. The fear is this is another step in dismantling the rights of Muslims of India." Follow the programme on Twitter @thinking_muslim https://twitter.com/thinking_muslim Join the Thinking Muslim Course - visit thinkingmuslim.eventbrite.co.uk

Dr. Ovamir Anjum’s recent piece for the Yaqeen Institute entitled “Who wants the Caliphate?” is certainly worth a read. It is a fairly substantial long-read for an internet article, so to summarise just a few of the points I found interesting; please note there is much more in the article than what I mention below, these are just some initial points to spark your interest in reading the article for yourself. 1. The desire amongst Muslims for a Caliphate is only growing, due to the failure of the current nation-states and the neo-liberal order which is enforced by the current unrepresentative regimes across the Middle East region and beyond. The emergence and fall of ISIS has increased this desire, juxtaposing what a bad version of a claim to a caliphate looks like with the ideal. 2. This failure is not limited to the Middle East – the whole world is currently experiencing the fallout from the failure of the current world order, as highlighted by growing inequality etc. 3. He addr