Targeting health facilities serves the war aim of forcible transfer.

US Senators “bury” their heads in sand as American-made bombs obliterate Palestinian civilians.

White House doubles down on sidelining Palestinians and pursuing normalization.

Retrial of Palestine Action members to take place in 2025.

The decision by ‘Britain’s strictest head’ reflects a wider culture with a myopic view of what multiculturalism should look like

• Nadeine Asbali is a secondary school teacher in London

Muslims pray five times a day, beginning before sunrise and ending after sunset. It is a central pillar of our faith, and we believe it will be one of the first things we will be questioned about by God after we die.

As a Muslim secondary school teacher, I pray in my own classroom at lunchtimes – and in winter, when the days are shorter, I pray once more after lessons are finished. Never has this private, spiritual act threatened the cohesion of the schools in which I have worked. Never has it diminished my Britishness. And yet, that is exactly the argument given by the controversial headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh this week as she defends the decision to ban “prayer rituals” at her north-west London secondary, Michaela.

Continue reading...

This year has been a difficult time for us all- watching the events in Palestine has been heartbreaking and demoralizing. However, the Muslim Bookstagram Awards continued in the hopes that through the work of talented Muslim literary creators, and the support of readers and community, Muslim voices will be uplifted, supported, and empowered.

And with that, we announce the winners of the 2023 Muslim Bookstagram Awards!

Best Toddler Book

Little Umar’s Search is a super cute board book following Umar as he looks for his older brother – and finds his family members all engaged in different acts of worship. This sturdy life-the-flaps book will be a favourite with toddlers!

Best Picture Book

Salat in Secret

Muhammad receives his first real sujjaadah (prayer mat) at the age of 7, with his father’s words ringing in his ears: “Never delay salat.” But when Muhammad realizes that he has to pray at school… the challenge is a little more than he expected it to be. It is when he witnesses his father living up to his principles no matter what that he realizes what it truly means to make salat the ultimate priority.

Best Chapter Book

Meet the Maliks: Ramadan Mayhem

Maysa and Musa Malik are twins and troublemakers – well, it’s actually just Maysa who is the troublemaker. Maysa desperately wants to go to a camp and to do that she has to prove that she is mature to her parents. So Maysa tries to be better, but she just has a knack for Mayhem. When the Ramadan cookies are stolen, it’s Maysa who figures out the solution, and learns on the way that gossiping is wrong.

Best Middle Grade Book

Huda F Cares?

“Huda F Cares” is the latest chronicles of @yesimhotinthis – this time, following Huda and her family to Disney World.

Between Huda’s fears that her family stands out a little too much, Umm Huda’s nefarious plot to force some sisterly bonding, and the awkwardness of praying in public, this graphic novel lives up to its laugh-out-loud predecessors.

Best YA/ Adult Fiction

Much Ado about Nada

Loosely inspired by Jane Austen’s “Persuasion,” Much Ado About Nada is more a lighthearted rom-com with an unexpected twist on the genre of second-chance love. Nada Syed is going on 30, struggling with her start-up business idea – and coming face-to-face with a figure from her past. Will Nada’s heart be in danger as it was many years ago, or does she have a second chance at love?

Best Illustrations

The Masjid Kamal Loves

From the friends Kamal meets at Jumu’ah, to playful splashing while doing wudhu, to the imam’s wisdom and the smiles of other believers – this book highlights the very essence of loving the masjid and its experiences. This book is a beautiful example of Muslim joy.

Best Holiday Book

H

Made from the Same Dough

Papa isn’t a Muslim, but he’ll be spending Ramadan with his grandson, Rayan, and his family. Rayan worries his grandfather won’t fit in and might even do something embarrassing. When Papa suggests bringing cookies made from his favorite Christmas recipe, Rayan panics. How will Rayan handle the challenge of having his Christian grandfather at his Ramadan gathering? Can he and Papa find common ground and respect each other’s traditions?

Best Non-Fiction

Letters From A Prophet

Many years ago, across distant lands and faraway empires, a series of letters were sent to some of the most powerful men on earth. These were no ordinary letters, however- they were from none other than the Last Prophet of God and the message they contained was one for all time. This unique book goes into detail about the special letters of da’wah that RasulAllah (SallAllahu alayhi wa sallam) sent to four major rulers of his time: Emperor Heraclius, Al-Muqawqis, King Chosroes, and an-Najaashi. More than just providing the letters, however, this book goes into depth about the context of each letter, the letters’ recipients and their reactions, and relevant lessons for us to glean from each incident.

Judges’ Choice Award

Ramadan Nights by Jenny Divleli hits all the right notes in evoking Ramadan vibes!

From home-made decorations to sighting the moon, the joy of praying taraweeh and being woken by a Ramadan drummer for suhoor, this lovely book will fill readers hearts with true Ramadan joy. Simple scenes of reciting Qur’an, struggling with hunger, sharing with others and gratitude for Allah’s blessings all encapsulate the beauty of Ramadan in a way that will connect with young children and create memories to drawn upon for years to come.

Bookseller Legacy

Specially chosen by our sponsor, Noura of CrescentMoon Bookstore, “Migo & Ali: Love for the Prophets” is an enduring bestseller, and for good reason!

This delightful hardback book contains vibrantly illustrated stories of the prophets, from Adam (as) to Muhammad (saw). These stories are concise, and told in engaging, child-friendly language. A delightful question and answer session after each story is also unique in its style, depicted as a conversation between the two lovable characters.

[DON’T FORGET! SPECIAL COUPON CODE: Use the coupon code “MBR” for 15% off all products ordered from Crescent Moon Bookstore!]

As always, we are incredibly grateful for the support of all the Muslim authors, illustrators, publishers, and of course, the readers who make it all worth it. We pray that Allah blesses all everyone who has contributed to the Muslim literary scene and makes their efforts a source of reward in this world and the Next, ameen!

Related:

The Muslim Bookstagram Awards 2023: Meet The Finalists!

The Muslim Bookstagram Awards : Announcing The 2022 Winners!

The post The Muslim Bookstagram Awards : The 2023 Winners! appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Nearly 95 percent of missions to allocate fuel, medicine in northern areas have been denied by Israeli authorities.

There is no respite in Gaza as families are torn apart.

I’m going to open this article by sharing two stories that highlight the power and effectiveness of duʿā.

Abū Hurairah narrates that he would frequently invite his mother to accept Islam, and she would always refuse. One day, he was encouraging her to accept the truth and she responded with some hurtful speech regarding the Prophet ﷺ. She rebuked her son and insulted the Prophet ﷺ. This pained Abū Hurairah as he was a man with a very soft and tender heart. He came to the Prophet ﷺ crying and said, “O Messenger of Allah! I would invite my mother to Islam and she would reject it. I invited her again today and she said some things regarding you that I disliked. Supplicate to Allah ﷻ to guide Abū Hurairah’s mother.” The Prophet ﷺ raised his hands and said, “O Allah, guide Abū Hurairah’s mother!” 

He left happy with the Prophet’s supplication and returned to his mother’s home. When his mother heard him approaching the door she asked for him to wait outside as she was bathing. As soon as she finished, she opened the door and said, “O Abū Hurairah! I bear witness that there’s no one worthy of worship except Allah and I bear witness the Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allah!” This brought indescribable joy to Abū Hurairah’s heart and he went back to the Prophet ﷺ. This time he came to him with tears of joy and told him what happened. He said, “Rejoice O Messenger of Allah, for Allah ﷻ has accepted your duʿā. He has guided Abū Hurairah’s mother to Islam. He also said, “O Messenger of Allah! Supplicate to Allah to make my mother and I beloved to the believing men and women.” The Prophet ﷺ said, “O Allah! Make this servant of yours and his mother beloved to every believing man and woman.” As a result, Abū Hurairah would say, “No believing man or woman hears of me except that they love me.” [Sahih Muslim 2491]

That is the amazing and transformative power of duʿā. It has the ability to make the seemingly impossible possible. Through the duʿā of the Prophet ﷺ, Abū Huraira’s mother’s heart was opened and she surrendered to Allah ﷻ. This is a woman who just a few moments before had refused to accept Islam and insulted the Prophet ﷺ.

The second story is from Anas .

He narrates that once while the Prophet ﷺ was delivering a khuṭbah, a man entered the masjid, interrupted the Prophet ﷺ, and said, “O Messenger of Allah! Our wealth has perished and the roads have been cut off. Supplicate to Allah to send us rain.”

يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ هَلَكَتِ الأَمْوَالُ وَانْقَطَعَتِ السُّبُلُ، فَادْعُ اللَّهَ يُغِيثُنَا

The Messenger of Allah ﷻ raised his hands and said, “O Allah send us rain! O Allah send us rain! O Allah send us rain!” Anas said, “By Allah, when he raised his hands there were no clouds in the sky.” Then all of a sudden, a cloud appeared in the middle of the sky, spread, and it started to rain. “By Allah, we didn’t see the sun for a week.” [Agreed upon]

That is the power of duʿā. It has the ability to make the seemingly impossible possible. Within a moment it can change circumstances, situations, and conditions.

Supplication [PC: Imad Alassiry (unsplash)]

Duʿā, supplication, calling upon Allah ﷻ, is one of the absolute most powerful and amazing tools that we have as believers. The Prophet ﷺ said, “Duʿā is the weapon of the believer.” Just as a weapon is used for protection and defense in a physical sense, duʿā (prayer) is seen as a spiritual and emotional weapon that we as believers can use to seek help, guidance, and strength from Allah ﷻ. This saying underscores the belief that turning to Allah ﷻ in prayer is a source of comfort, solace, and empowerment for us, especially in times of difficulty, hardship, or when facing challenges. It encourages us to have faith in the efficacy of our supplications and the divine support that can be obtained through sincere prayer.

Duʿā is a direct line of communication between a believer and their Lord and Creator. It is considered to be the essence or epitome of worship. The Prophet ﷺ said, “Duʿā is the essence of worship.” When we raise our hands in supplication to Allah ﷻ it shows that we recognize the reality of our relationship with Him. We recognize that we are His servants and that He is our Lord and Creator. We acknowledge and admit that we don’t have the power, ability, or capability to do anything without the help and assistance of Allah ﷻ. When we supplicate to Allah ﷻ, we are affirming all of His divine names and attributes. We are affirming that He ﷻ is our Lord, Creator, Sustainer, Provider, Nourisher, the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing, and the All-Knowing. When we engage in duʿā we are affirming that Allah ﷻ is in charge of this entire universe and everything it contains; that He alone is the King of all kings.

By supplicating to Allah ﷻ we are fulfilling our obligation of calling upon Him. And the beautiful thing is that when we call upon Him, He answers. Allah ﷻ says,

“And your Lord says call upon me and I will respond to you.” [Surah Ghafir: 40;60]

In this verse, Allah ﷻ Himself is instructing us to call upon Him. Allah ﷻ is instructing us to worship Him and make duʿā. And then He ﷻ gives us a promise that He will respond. Similarly, in Sūrah al-Baqarah Allah ﷻ says,

“[Prophet], if My servants ask you about Me, I am near. I respond to those who call Me, so let them respond to Me, and believe in Me, so that they may be guided.” [Surah Baqarah: 2;186]

This verse is very significant in helping us nurture, develop, and cultivate a stronger relationship with Allah ﷻ. Oftentimes, we may think of Allah ﷻ as being very distant or far. Because we can’t see Allah ﷻ in the life of this world, we may feel that He is distant, or God-forbid absent from our daily life and affairs. But Allah ﷻ tells us that He is near; He is close. An aspect of that proximity is that He answers our prayers.

“I respond to those who call Me…” Again, Allah ﷻ gives us a guarantee that He will respond to our calls when we call upon Him. But here, Allah ﷻ makes His acceptance of our supplications conditional. “So let them respond to Me, and believe in Me, so that they may be guided.” Allah ﷻ is telling us that if we want Him to respond to our call, we have to respond to His. Allah’s call is found in the Quran; it is living our lives according to the guidance of the Quran and following the practical example of the Prophet ﷺ. If we want our prayers to be accepted, we have to try our best to follow the instructions, guidance, commands, and prohibitions of Allah ﷻ and His Messenger ﷺ.

When a person frequently calls upon Allah ﷻ it shows that they have firm faith and a strong relationship with their Lord and Creator. Allah ﷻ promises that He will respond to His servants if they call upon Him seeking His help, assistance, and guidance. 

However, from experience, we know that we don’t always get what we ask for. A common question people ask is “Why are my prayers not being answered?” The Prophet ﷺ provides a response to this question in the following ḥadīth.

Abū Hurairah narrates that the Prophet ﷺ said, “There is not a man who calls upon Allah with a supplication, except that he is answered. Either it shall be granted to him in the world, or reserved for him in the Hereafter, or his sins shall be expiated for it according to the extent that he supplicated – as long as he does not supplicate for some sin, or for the severing of the ties of kinship, and he does not become hasty.” The companions said: “O Messenger of Allah, and how would he be hasty?” He ﷻ said: “He says: ‘I called upon my Lord, but He did not answer me.’”

We cannot and should not underestimate the power of supplication. It is one of the most important things we can continue to do for our brothers and sisters in Gaza. Oftentimes our word choice and rhetoric are reflective of our beliefs and inner feelings. When we hear people speaking about supplicating for our brothers and sisters they make it seem like a cop-out or something insignificant. Oftentimes we hear people saying, “The least we can do is make duʿā for them.” That is not the least we can do. Duʿā is one of the most important things we can do to help our brothers and sisters who are experiencing ethnic cleansing and genocide. It is one of the most powerful tools and weapons we have in our arsenal.

May Allah ﷻ grant the people of Gaza continued strength, patience, perseverance, tawakkul, and victory. May He ﷻ remove the injustice and oppression from their lives and bring an end to the brutal occupation. May Allah ﷻ liberate al-Aqṣā. From the river to the sea Palestine will be free!

 

Related:

– 5 Steps To Grow From Passive To Active Bystanders During The Genocide Of Gaza

– Why Our Prayers for Gaza May Not Be Answered

The post From The Chaplain’s Desk: The Power Of Dua appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Guests: Haidar Eid, Ahmed Abofoul, Shahd Abusalama, Jon Elmer.

Investments by Israel’s weapons industry are often concealed.

Headteacher of London school Michaela says policy is vital to ensure ‘children of all races and religions can thrive’

The headteacher of a school facing legal action over a ban on prayer rituals has defended the policy, arguing that it was vital in order to “maintain a successful learning environment where children of all races and religion can thrive”.

The case against Michaela community school in Brent, north-west London, which has been the subject of a two-day hearing at the high court in London this week, has been brought by one of its Muslim pupils, who claims the ban is discriminatory and is seeking to have it overturned.

Continue reading...

“The dawn of freedom for our entire nation is nearing,” says Qassam Brigades spokesperson Abu Obeida.

A speaker at a Hizb ut-Tahrir demonstration in London, October 2023

Yesterday (Monday), out of nowhere as far as I could tell, the Tories announced that they were going to proscribe Hizb ut-Tahrir, a political party founded in Palestine whose name means Liberation Party, as a so-called terrorist organisation. The pretext was that, allegedly, they praised the Hamas attacks of last October “and associated incidents” and have “a history of praising and celebrating attacks against Israel and attacks against Jews more widely”. By way of justification, the security minister Tom Tugendhat, parrots disputed Israeli claims about the attacks, notably the unsubstantiated rape claims, as fact. The idea of banning HT has been mooted at least twice before, under both Labour and Tory governments, and rejected both because of lack of evidence of their involvement in violence and because they are too small for banning them to be of any benefit. Apart from Germany and Austria, the majority of countries which have banned HT are dictatorships, a fact the government cites as a reason to ban them here.

I’m not a member of HT and never have been. I’m the generation that remembers when the London branch, or what was claimed to be, was controlled by Omar Bakri Muhammad who later broke away to form Al-Muhajiroun, which for a while adhered to similar principles but in the early 2000s became an explicitly “salafi-jihadi” group, albeit one focussed on sabotaging other Muslims’ efforts while courting media attention for their increasingly extreme stances until Omar Bakri fled the country and Anjum Choudary was arrested. HT at this point started to become more obscure although the likes of Harry’s Place kept bringing them to the attention of their readership, which included people at the Times newspaper and in Tory think-tanks. However, HT was held with suspicion by other Muslims for their questionable aqeedah, their exaggerated view of their founder Taqiuddeen al-Nabahani (I once heard him called a mujtahid mutlaq, something nobody has claimed since the third or fourth generation of Muslims) and the simple fact that they have achieved precisely nothing — not one positive change of government in any Muslim country — throughout their history.

However, the government’s reasons for banning them are considerably weaker than the usual reasons for proscribing an organisation for terrorism. Having praised the 7th October attacks is not the same as having participated or actively encouraged them before the event; it puts them in the same category as Sinn Fein, which was not banned, rather than the IRA with which it was strongly associated with (likewise, the political fronts for the banned Ulster Loyalist terrorist groups remained legal). A couple of years ago they also banned the political wing of Hizbullah, the Lebanese political party, on the grounds that there was no distinction between the political and military wings, but HT has no military wing; their strategy hinges on what they call “seeking the nusrah” (assistance), such as from other Muslim countries or their armies as we have seen in their recent demonstrations outside embassies in London, including that of Egypt which may well have been the source of any pressure the government were under to ban them.

It also reminds us that ever since the notion of terrorism was in popular discourse, powerful people have used the term as a way to suppress dissent and to demonise opposition; what people understand as terrorism is the use of acts of violence targeted at the general public to force political change, while politicians might use it to mean any act of violence for political ends, including acts of sabotage that are not aimed at causing injury to anyone, or at worst acts that cause mere disruption. In this case the government are lining up not only with the oppressors of Israel (where HT is not banned) but with the Arab dictators who want any organised opposition to their regimes crushed, and having done so (at least to any overt opposition) at home, they now seek to do the same to groups influencing the Arab and Muslim diaspora, by exploiting fears about security and distorting the meaning of ‘terrorism’. If HT can be banned on such flimsy and spurious grounds, any organised Muslim opposition to the Israeli occupation or to the foreign-backed dictatorships in the Muslim world could be banned if the government comes under pressure or someone from a securocratic think-tank has a word in a minister’s ear. Only two countries in the “free world” have banned HT, namely Germany and Austria; the others include Russia, China and Egypt. There is no good reason to ban the British arm of HT; the claims made to justify it are baseless and the ban must not stand.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Nick Timothy itching for a fight
• Sunak’s doughnut strategy
• Khalid Mahmood should lose the Labour whip
• Tory members should not pick our PM
• Rushdie, Khomeini and Muslims here and there

Foreign affairs ministry spokesperson absurdly claims South Africa is “functioning as the legal arm” of Hamas.

Amal Saad talks to us about Lebanon’s resistance to Israel.

Award-winning novelist Ahmed Masoud tells us how his family is coping with catastrophe, and how he tries to support them from afar.

Children in Gaza are being traumatized daily.

How fighters in Gaza tell the world about their battles in defense of Gaza.

Brokers accused of exploiting victims.