Archive for the ‘Islam’ Category
The days of Hajj are beginning
وَلِلَّهِ عَلَى ٱلنَّاسِ حِجُّ ٱلْبَيْتِ مَنِ ٱسْتَطَاعَ إِلَيْهِ سَبِيلًا ۚ وَمَن كَفَرَ فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ غَنِىٌّ عَنِ ٱلْعَـٰلَمِينَ
…and pilgrimage to the House is incumbent upon men for the sake of Allah, (upon) every one who is able to undertake the journey to it; and whoever disbelieves, then surely Allah is Self-sufficient, above any need of the worlds.
Hodočastiti Hram dužan je, Allaha radi, svaki onaj koji je u mogućnosti; a onaj koji neće da vjeruje – pa, zaista, Allah nije ovisan ni o kome.
The Holy Qur’an, sura Ali-Imran: 97
لَبَّيْكَ اللَّهُمَّ لَبَيْكَ, لَبَّيْكَ لَا شَرِيكَ لَكَ لَبَّيْكَ. إِنَّ الْحَمْدَ وَ النِّعْمَتَ لَكَ وَ الْمُلْكَ, لَا شَرِيكَ لَكَ.
Muslims United for Change against Malaria
The Reality of Truthfulness (Sidq)
via:
http://www.marifah.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2265&pid=9488&mode=threaded&show=&st=&
The Reality of Truthfulness (Sidq)
As for truthfulness (sidq), Allah says:
“O you who believe! Have fear of Allah (taqwa) and be with the truthful.” (9:120)
“Be among the truthful” because the one who sits with someone is influenced for good and evil. Nature is a thief. A man copies the one he mixes with a lot, even if he is not aware of it. Tarafa said,
Do not ask about a man. Ask about his close companions.
Every man imitates his close companions.
This is the best path to travel for someone who wants to discipline himself. It is to mix with the perfect man so that his nature and good habits flow to him. The influence of actions is absolutely stronger than the influence of words.
Al-Qushayri noted, “Truthfulness is the basis of the matter and it is made perfect by it, and it is commanded.” He said, “The least truthfulness is when what is secret and what is public are the same.”
Sahl said, “The scent of truthfulness has not been smelt by any person who flatters wither himself or another person.”
“Truthfulness is the sword of Allah,” said Dhu’n-Nun al-Misri. “It is not applied to anything but that it cuts right through it.”
Al-Harith al-Muhasibi said, “The truthful man is the one who does not care if his entire worth in the hearts of men should vanish away if it is for the sake of putting his heart in harmony. He does not like people to know about his least good actions, and he does not dislike people being aware of his bad actions. If he dislike that, it is proof that he desires to be greater in their eyes. This is not sincerity of the truthful ones.”
It is said that if you seek truthfulness from Allah, He will give you a mirror in which you can see the baseless falsehood of this world and the Next.
The master, Abu’l-Qasim al-Junayd, said, “The truthful man is turned about forty times a day, while the show-off is fixed in the same state for forty years.”
By this, he means that the truthful man changes direction with the truth, no matter what it is. When sees something in the Shari’a which is considered to be excellent, he promptly does it, even if it is at variance with his customary habit. If something arises in the Shari’a which is more important, but he cannot combine the two things, then he moves to the better one. He continues to behave like that. In a single day, he may have a hundred different states, or a thousand or even more, according to his mastery of gnosis, and the manifestation to him of fine points and subtleties.
The show-off, on the other hand, clings to one state alone, and if something arises which the Shari’a considers more important in some states, then he will still not do that important thing. He will hold fast to his state, because he is showing off his worship and his state to creation. He fears that people will stop loving him if he changes. He is very careful to ensure that their love continues. But the truthful one desires only the Face of Allah by his worship. Whenever the Shari’a gives greater weight to a certain state, he goes to that state, and does not turn to creation.
-Imam Abu Zakariyya Muhyi’d-din ibn Sharaf an-Nawawi, The Garden of the Gnostics (Bustan-ul-Arifeen)
Murid’s Log: Moulay Abd as-Salam ibn Mashish
The Shadhili Tariqa is built on the foundations of Shukr and Mahabba, gratitude to Allah, and love for him. Moulay Abd as-Salam ibn Mashish summed up the way of the Tariqa that his greatest student was to found in his famous advice to the brethren:
“Seek four things after four things:
Love for Allah,
Satisfaction with the Decree of Allah,
Indifference of the heart towards worldly things, and
Reliance on Allah.
Attain these four, after these four:
Performing Allah’s commands,
Avoiding Allah’s prohibitions,
Patience and fortitude from everything that does not concern one, and
Abandoning everything that distracts and diverts one.”
Were this admonition the only piece of knowledge we had of the Sheikh, it would be enough to prove the truth of his immense understanding, and his lofty status before Allah.
Typesetting professional Islamic articles/books with XeTeX
Last edit: October 20, 2009. Note that this article is a work in progress. Feel free to comment.
Masha Allah, XeTeX has come a long way!
For those that don’t know, XeTeX is a TeX typesetting engine (i.e. software) supporting Unicode and modern font technologies such as OpenType or Apple Advanced Typography. Together with LaTeX, it lets you create beautiful and professional looking PDFs, with support for a lot of natural languages/scripts. And, you can get it for free, because it’s Free/Open Source software.
A typical XeTeX document contains plain text and looks something like this:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xltxtra}
\newfontfamily{\arabicfont}[Script=Arabic,Scale=1.5]{Traditional Arabic}
\usepackage{arabxetex}
\begin{document}
\section{\textarab[utf]{العربية}}
\textarab[utf]{السلم عليكم و رحمت الله و بركته}
\section{Legacy syntax}
When he goes---``Salamun alaykum!''\\
She replies—“Wa alaykumus-salam, dear!”
\end{document}
Actually, the text above is a LaTeX document with XeTeX (i.e. Unicode) support. LaTeX is a full-fledged markup language for typesetting, built on top of TeX, which is a programming language for very low-level typesetting. A pretty rough analogy would be that LaTeX is the equivalent of barebone HTML/CSS, while TeX is like JavaScript, enabling you to fine-tune the visual appearance.
Being a programming language, TeX/LaTeX offers a lot of packages that extend its core functionality. Packages are written by ordinary users and uploaded to The Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN) or some other place, where anyone can download them.
The downside is that it takes time to get used to (La)TeX. Some parts of the syntax are very weird. Installing TeX and friends can be a real pain. Fortunately, there’s plenty of documentation online, as well as some mailing lists where you can get help from (Xe)TeX experts. Packages come with their own documentation, usually in a PDF file. This can be a problem when it comes to searching for what you need, because some PDFs generated with XeLaTeX can be unsearchable, even from within Adobe Acrobat Reader.
What’s wrong with MS Word?
Word (or the freely available equivalent OpenOffice) is OK for documents with a small number of pages, although even then the results are suboptimal. With larger documents it’s definitely better to switch to something more suited to professional typesetting. TeX and friends are one solution.
Installing XeTeX on Windows
Enough words, let’s do something useful. If you’re using Windows, I recommend installing MiKTeX. MiKTeX is a free TeX/LaTeX/XeTeX distribution for Microsoft Windows. It comes with a great package manager that automatically downloads and installs packages from CTAN. You can even update the packages when new versions come out. It adds the directory with all the executables (e.g., C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.8\miktex\bin) to the default search PATH for executables so you can invoke it directly from the command prompt (cmd.exe). There’s even a completely portable USB stick ready version of XeTeX. Really well done!
There are some screencasts out there that show you how to install and use MiKTeX. One even goes to explain ArabTeX which I don’t recommend using (there’s ArabXeTeX now). More on that later.
Text editors for Windows
When you install MiKTeX, it doesn’t come with a text editor. While you can use Notepad as your editor for LaTeX, it’s better to use something that has at least syntax highlithting for TeX.
Unfortunately, the problem with editors on Windows is Unicode support, which can be pretty bad. Notepad has decent Unicode support. When I say Unicode, I mean UTF-8 which is the only sane text encoding that should be used for writing multilanguage (plain text) documents. There’s also the problem of a good monospace font that supports Arabic.
After experimenting a bit, it seems that the best free LaTeX editor on Windows is Texmaker. It has to be tweaked a little – by default, it isn’t set-up to save files in UTF-8, and for generating PDFs with the “Quick Build” button, one should use xelatex, instead of pdflatex. You can also change the default Courier New font to Traditional Arabic.
When you click on “Quick build” inside Texmaker, especially the first time, it can take a while. This is even more so on Windows, where MiKTeX has to download the packages needed to build the document. It’s probably better to use the xelatex command from the command-line (cmd.exe) the first few times.
Here are some pics:
Update: now I think that on Windows Gedit is the best choice for the average user. Still, I prefer to use Emacs (my text editor of choice) even on Windows (see also EmacsW32). Emacs currently doesn’t display correctly Right-to-Left (RTL) languages (work is under way), so I don’t recommend it for texts with lots of Arabic.
Related to TeX(t) editing is the process of viewing the generated PDF. Just recently, Evince, a GNU/Linux document viewer has been ported to Windows. Evince has a very useful feature of automatically reloading the PDF every time it’s changed, and that’s why I recommend it.
Installing it on GNU/Linux – Ubuntu
You can install XeTeX on Ubuntu with:
sudo apt-get install texlive-xetex
ArabXeTeX isn’t packaged for Ubuntu, but you can add it to your home texmf dir. There are a lot of editors available on GNU/Linux systems, Texmaker included.
Note that, at the time of writing, Ubuntu is is still supporting only the TeX Live 2007 version. TeX Live 2008 is the latest stable version, while the 2009 version is in pretest stage. You can easily install them on your local system, even as a non-root user. In fact, I removed the original Ubuntu package(s) completely. I have installed TeX Live 2008 to /home/edin/texlive2008 and created a shell script (~/bin/texlive2008.sh) with the following content:
export PATH=~/texlive2008/2008/bin/i386-linux:$PATH
It can be invoked with bash --rcfile ~/bin/texlive2008.sh
Installing it on Mac OS
I don’t have a Mac, but XeTeX was initially developed for the Mac platform so you should have no problems installing it.
Arabic support for LaTeX
XeTeX enables you to use Unicode fonts in your LaTeX documents, but for smooth Arabic (i.e. RTL) experience you have to install the bidi package. I suggest you also install ArabXeTeX. ArabXeTeX is the XeTeX compliant successor of ArabTeX, which works without XeTeX, i.e. with plain TeX. ArabTeX doesn’t allow you to use your OTF/AAT fonts and there are rumors that the code underlying it is ugly.
In addition, ArabXeTeX provides a nice plain ASCII transliteration mechanism, so you can write Arabic using an English keyboard.
Update: I have been working a bit with ArabXeTeX and it has had a problem with positioning of harakats on the lam-elif ligature. Now I’m sticking to plain XeTeX with \newcommand{\ar}[1]{\RL{\arabicfont#1}}.
There’s a video from TUG 2009 entitled “Arabic typography: Past, present, and TeX”. There are also some other Arabic related packages: arabi, alqalam. As far as I know, alqalam is packaged only for Debian-like GNU/Linux distributions and isn’t uploaded to CTAN. There’s also FarsiTeX.
Fonts
For some nice free Arabic fonts, I suggest you visit the SIL page dedicated to Scheherazade and Lateef fonts.
Khaled Hosny is working on a fork of Scheherazade as part of his raqm project. He plans to add many ligatures to the font, and could use your help. With the freely available FontForge this shouldn’t be difficult. There’s also an easy to install (i.e. unpack) Windows version of FontForge.
There are also some free fonts that contain calligraphic symbols/sentences: Allah, bismilla etc. We could use some more.
For some other fonts see the (whole) thread: List of free Unicode fonts in the XeTeX ML archive, the somewhat old WAZU JAPAN’s Gallery of Unicode Fonts, and the ArabEyes font page.
An example
There’s a mercurial repository of the XeTeX version of the ongoing discontinued? series of articles by Al-Kakazai: “Sharh Aqidah al-Awam of Sayyid al-Maliki”.
You can download the resulting PDF files here:
The sharh of the aqidah, The aqidah without the commentary
Ask Imam :: Fatwa regarding tasawwuf, tariqas etc.
“Other peculiar forms of spiritual exercises include making loud dhikr with bodily motion whether standing, as in the case of hadrah as performed by the Shadhilīs, or sitting, as performed by the Chishtīs. Other exercises include certain breathing exercises like pās anfās as performed by the Chishtīs and various forms of murāqabah (meditation) as done by the Naqshbandīs etc.
The inherent permissibility or impermissibility of some of these exercises will rest upon the differences of the various Madhāhib since some of these practices cross the boundary of a mere internal metaphysical sphere to the externally physical; thus, falling under the jurisdiction of the Fuqahā’. To present a brief example, the practice of hadrah, a type of spiritual bodily movement similar to swaying that some refer to dancing coupled with loud dhikr, is permissible for the followers of the Shāfi‘ī Madhhab since according to their ‘Ulamā and Madhhab dancing is permissible with certain conditions.
…
It is important to bear in mind that unfortunately, there has always existed groups of self-centered, worldly motivated pseudo-Sufis who misrepresented Tasawwuf and used some of the practices of the Sufis, not to mention concocted some of their own, to suit their nafsānī (selfish) desires. Some of them feign being Sufis in order to gain fame and popularity, others to engage in singing and dancing and others to earn money etc. It is from such people that deviances began to crop up in this pristine and praiseworthy science. Examples of their innovations include the Qawāli where singing and music are rampant under the guise of Dhikr, grave-worship where people commit shirk by prostrating to the inmates of the grave, Salāmī where people stand up to offer salutations upon Rasūlullah صلى الله عليه و سلم with the belief that Rasūlullah صلى الله عليه و سلم visits the gathering and other similar practices that have no real connection with Tasawwuf. Because of the existence of such perfidious people and their impermissible practices, it has become a daunting task for sincere people such as you to find a true Shaykh and Tarīqah. Every Tarīqah has these imposters in their midst preying upon the ignorant masses; therefore, one must be cautious as to who one takes as a Murshid (guide). You should ensure that before taking formal bay‘ah to any Shaykh or entering into any Tarīqah, that the Shaykh is a complete adherent of the Sharī‘ah and upholds its dictates. Anyone who intentionally and openly breaks a single commandment of the Sharī‘ah is not worthy to be a Shaykh.”
via Ask Imam :: Fatwa.
see also: sunniforum.com – Mufti Desai on Shadhili Hadrah, Chishti Dhikr, Naqshi muraqabah, etc.
LISANULARAB: My Life With Arabic – a brief autobiography
“We are living in a world where everybody is pre-occupied with his / her own world – as if their world IS the world. Nobody has time anymore for each other – for each other’s worlds – for each other’s concerns, dreams and ambitions. What we don’t realise is that by sharing in other people’s worlds you are in fact enriching your own world. Make your world a bigger world by incorporating the worlds of others into your own and not by inflating your own ego.”
via LISANULARAB – ض – THE ARAB TONGUE: My Life With Bint ‘Adnan: a brief autobiography.
Quote: rare and unusual positions of scholars
al-Awza`i said: “Whoever holds on to the rare and unusual positions of the scholars has left Islam.”
Quote: Tears of weeping
“It is better to weep tears of joy than to joy at tears of weeping”
Traveller: Advice on Gaza
“…The scary part is that if we are not in these two states ie, being in a humble, sorry state before Allah and then calling upon Him in a sorrowful state, He will bring us to our knees through His creation…”
