Medinah Project Islamic Muslim Village

And as for those who emigrated for the Cause of Allâh, after suffering oppression, We will certainly give them goodly residence in this world, but indeed the reward of the Hereafter will be greater, if they but knew! (An-Nahl 41)

Al-hamdulillah, we are still in Manado preparing ourselves to return to the valley with our newest member, Maryam. We got additional archery equipment, and insyaAllah will be able now to do the final step towards the horseback-archery.

I still had to digest on the discussions I had with prospective participants already mentioned in the last newsletter. Some could argue that I should not spend so much time on this subject. That I am actually the one who is raising debates and that I should have more tawakal because only Allah can unite our hearts!

Nonetheless I would like others interested in the project to know my idea of unity and what I am hoping for, so that they can see if they agree or at least can cope with it. I am just the initiator of the project, not the amir, and as such of course worried, that all the time and effort I spend on it could be in vain. Much load will be off my shoulders insyaAllah when the shura is set up and the amir selected and I get rid off these responsibilities! A bit like a father over-worried about his child and glad when it finally grows up and can take care of itself! InsyaAllah with the article below I will end these discussions. It describes just some of my ideas and is not at all any “legal opinion”!

Wishing everybody a blessed Ramadhan! May our taubat and ‘amal be accepted and Allah unite our hearts so that we may stand the test of time!

And had Allâh willed, He could have made you (all) one ummah,
but He sends astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills.
But you shall certainly be called to account for what you used to do.
(An-Nahl 93)

I still remember how I entered Islam in Indonesia some 15 years ago. After the light entered my heart and the heart confirmed the truth, a whole new world was in front of me, waiting to get explored. So many things to be learned and to adapt to!

Unfortunately, not all things I learned and started to practice were according to Islamic teachings but just local Indonesian traditions! My legs, not used to sit in a Yoga-like position for hours in the mosque, started protesting quite vehemently, but because my dear teacher told me that the people would dislike it if I would sit otherwise, I tried to endure the torture as patient as possible, telling myself, if this is what Islam requires, I am willing to adjust myself to it. And like in this little example, I took pains to learn and to practice a lot of things foreign to Islam because considering them a part of Islam.

Slowly I discovered then, that there are many different opinions about certain subjects, which confused me quite a bit. I tried to take for myself what looked most reasonable to me, using my own intellect. During those times the use of internet was unknown yet and I was also far from reliable scholarly sources.

At the time I was busy with trying to sort out how things should be done according to the “real Islam” and wasting so much time on secondary issues like where to place my hand exactly in prayer, a few inches higher or lower, I started realizing, that the spirit was gone! How much effort it had taken me to find my way to Islam! How much I had to suffer for the sake of this religion before actually entering it! How close I came to God on the search for the truth! And when I finally found it, I started loosing the spirit … of which is actually all about!

Shortly I believed I found a remedy for this disaster when I got introduced to the “Salafi” way of going back to ‘Qur’an and Sunnah’. “Yes, exactly”, I thought, “lets throw away all this rubbish which accumulated in all these centuries and get back to the source! Let’s purify Islam!” And I was quite enthusiastic about this mission, telling everybody to shun all this bid’ah and to come back to the original Islam.

Fortunately it did not take long for me to realize that just by going back to the sources, not much is gained yet because it always needs an interpretation of the sources! And that those very people who are accusing others of “taqlid” are even much more fanatic of their Ulamas then any follower of a Mazhab of his Ulama, because a follower of a Mazhab is normally quite aware that his school is just one possible interpretation of the holy law and not the law itself whereas some really believe that they follow the holy law and only that! This arrogance had led to such an aggression that some Muslims claimed others to be mushrik, fighting and killing them, helping thereby the British, controlled by Dajjal, to destroy the Khalifah and allow the Zionist to get their dirty feet into Palestine!

The search for my lost spirituality led me to many groups and I saw many good things in all of them. When visiting some Sufi brothers in Germany and Spain for example, I was impressed about the atmosphere they create by keeping many beautiful Sunnahs alive, starting from wearing turban up to using some salt before starting eating. But with other things I could totally not agree with, especially submitting oneself to a Sheik in such a way, that one has to accept every kind of nonsense he is telling; even that Bush and Blair are holy men!

And I started to realize that the extremes and opposites often meet each other, falling both victims to the very same thing by rejecting the order of the Prophet s.a.w. to choose the middle path.

While the Muslims lost their unity, their worst enemies are close of finding it! They do not only reach unity but a certainty in the promise of shaitan to them which is far stronger than the belief of the average Muslim in Allah! And because of that, their strength is also far superior to those of the Muslims!

According to the taurat and injil, shaitan made Adam and Eve believe that if they would eat from the fruit of knowledge they would become like God themselves and become one of the immortals! This promise is true … although the biggest hoax ever!

According to their belief, by eating the fruit of knowledge man had to descend to this world, which is the world of opposites (which are necessary for gaining knowledge). During this descent, Adam split into 600,000 parts, each of them a soul. These souls are the chosen people! They reincarnate until the end of time they will reunite again under the leadership of their Messiah, but this time they will have reached apotheosis, they will have become like God because of having gone through the process of gaining knowledge!

The more knowledge mankind gathers, mankind becomes more and more like God! Man is flying already several times faster than sound; he can modify the genes and make his own creations; not long anymore he will get unlimited energy resources (nuclear fusion) and it will not take long anymore until he creates the biochip, the link between computer and the human brain!

This biochip will enable man not only to experience sound and vision, but he will be able to enter the cyberspace as a being enabling him to use the other senses as well. A being which personifies us in cyberspace is called avatar. Avatar in the Hindu mythology means: incarnated God!

The cyberspace is as unlimited as the real universe and they can create everything in it! The brain power of 600,000 souls united, backed up by supercomputers, can do things which are unimaginable now! If we see a movie like Avatar, we realize what they can already create now: a new fantastic world, resembling paradise, where humans can use an Avatar to access this world! All beings in this world are interconnected (united) by a magic tree which enables the hero of the story to finally move his self or soul from the human body to that of the avatar.

Allah promises the believers, that they will have anything they desire in paradise; and that is exactly they can do in these new worlds! On top of this, they will have (or have already) discovered the gene which causes mortality, so by modifying this gene they will become immortal!

The promise of shaitan is true! By eating from the fruit of knowledge, mankind really becomes like God and immortal, but with a dreadful result in the end!

"Lead to destruction those whom thou canst among them, with thy (seductive) voice; make assaults on them with thy cavalry and thy infantry; mutually share with them wealth and children; and make promises to them." But Satan promises them nothing but deceit. (Al-Isra’ 64)

Therefore o mankind, take a lesson! Shaitan does not deceive us with flat lies, but with something resembling the truth! The image in the mirror resembles reality to the very detail, and it exists, we can see it! But at the same time it has no reality in itself! And because it is so real, most people are deceived by the mirror (Lucifer, the light bearer) and are going in the wrong direction!

So while the movement we call Dajjal is awaiting the real person Dajjal to take control over the whole world and to reach their long sought unity, the Muslims are divided into fractions, giving themselves bad names and accusing the others to be followers of shaitan! By doing this we do not only disobey the Prophet s.a.w. who said: “O you who have believed, be brothers!” but also the command of Allah Almighty Himself who commanded us the hold onto the rope of Allah together:

“And hold fast to the Bond of Allah, together, and do not scatter. Remember the Favor of Allah bestowed upon you when you were enemies, and how He united your hearts, so that by His Favor you became brothers.” (Ali Imran 103)

He further makes it clear to us that, although only He can unite our hearts, He also would not change the condition of a people unless the people themselves are doing their effort!

Now, let us ask ourselves, what has to be done to reach our unity again and re-establish brotherhood in order that we regain our strength! I don’t think we have to be scholars to realize what has to be done because it appears to me quite obvious and logical. But if you believe that only your group is the rightly guided one and that everybody else will eventually have to join it, then you should save your time and not read any further and just look for a different project like already mentioned in the last newsletter!

1) First of all we have to have the same identity! We may not call us with any other name rather the one given to us by Allah Most High Himself, and that is Muslim!

2) Secondly, we may not introduce new things to Islam on which not everybody can agree on!

Let’s take the example Maulid: It is true, giving salawaat on the Prophet s.a.w. is highly recommended, but why for heavens sake do we have to set up a thing never ordered by the Prophet s.a.w. and never practiced by the companions r.a. ? It is more than obvious that it will raise discussions, debates and ill feelings, splitting up the ummah EVEN if we have good arguments that the invention in itself is according to the principles of Islam (“How can giving salawaat and praising Allah be an act doomed for hellfire?”) which I do not want to argue about! Nonetheless there are also enough arguments against it like that the exact date of the Prophets s.a.w. birthday is not even proven and that the 12th of Rabiul Awwal could also be the day the Prophet s.a.w. died, so not really an occasion for happy celebration! The Prophet s.a.w. forbade us strictly to imitate the Christians who are celebrating the birth of Jesus and there are other valid arguments like that the Prophet s.a.w. said: “Do not exaggerate in praising me like the Christians have praised ‘Eesaa Ibn Maryam (Jesus son of Mary). I am but a slave, so call me the slave of Allah and His Messenger.”

We cannot expect that all other Muslims are just quiet about it and “tolerant”, but surely they will point out to us why according to their opinion it is not a praiseworthy innovation, especially when we are displaying it in public, occupying the mosques, sending out invitations and asking for donations! And even getting upset when the others do not share our view, do not follow our invitation or request for donation!

Furthermore, many not well educated Muslims, like for example where our village is located, cannot differentiate what is actually a “supererogatory worship”, newly invented thing, local tradition, and what the original teachings of Islam are, as they are far away from reliable sources! They do not even have a translation of the Qur’an in most of their mosques! By introducing “extra worship”, Islam gets distorted! And anybody thinking about it with a calm mind and reflecting on what is going on in a backward country like Indonesia with all its local bid’ah, must agree to that!

The Messenger of Allah s.a.w. said: “He who innovates something in this matter of ours [i.e. Islam] that is not of it will have it rejected [by Allah]”. (Related by al-Bukhari and Muslim)

Yes, there are new things in Islam, which are of great benefit, and no Muslim would object them! As for the Furoo' (branches) of knowledge which are established from the Usool (basic principles) and which do not depart from the Sunnah, then these are not referred to by this hadith. For example, the writing down of the Qur'an as a Mushaf by 'Uthman r.a., or the establishment of the various mazhabs in Fiqh (Schools of Jurisprudence), which are from the understanding of the Mujtahid scholars of Fiqh, those who built the matters of Furoo' upon the Usool (which are the statements of the Prophet s.a.w.). And also, from amongst the matters not included in this hadith is the writing of books on subjects such as Grammar or Arithmetic or the Laws of Inheritance, and other than that from the sciences that are built upon the statements and commands of the Messenger of Allah s.a.w.

The original Qur'ânic Script had no vowel signs yet, called tashkîl in Arabic, which help to determine the correct pronunciation of the word and to avoid mistakes. The introduction of them was an innovation, but certainly a praiseworthy one! When the Islamic state expanded, more and more Muslims of non-Arab origin and also many ignorant Arabs studied the Qur'an, thus faulty pronunciation and wrong readings began to increase. Abû 'Ubaydah narrated about Abû al-Aswad al-Du'alî:

Abû al-Aswad derived grammar from Alî Ibn Abî Tâlib, for whom may there be peace, but he did not disclose to anyone what he had learned from Alî, whose countenance may Allah honour, until Ziyad appointed him for the composition of something to serve as a guide to the people, so that they could understand the book of Allah. Abû al-Aswad asked to be excused from this task, until one time when he heard a reader recite, ‘Allah is quit of the idolators and of His Apostle’ (Qur'ân 9:3 should have been read as ‘Allah is quit of the idolators and so is His Apostle’). Then he said, "I never supposed that the condition of the people would come to this!" So he returned to Ziyad and said, "I will do what the amir has ordered. Let there be sought for me a scribe who is intelligent and obedient to what I say". They brought, therefore, a scribe from the Abd al-Kays Tribe, but he [Abû al-Aswad] was not satisfied with him. Then they came with another one, about whom Abû al-Abbas al-Mubarrad said, "I regard him to be one of those [who are intelligent]." So Abû al-Aswad said [to the new scribe], "If you see that I open my mouth in pronouncing a letter, place a mark above, on top of it. If I close my mouth [making a u sound], place a mark in front of the letter, and if I split [my lips] double the mark." So this was the marking system of Abû al-Aswad.

From the Qur'ân of Uthmân, the Third Rightly Guided Caliph
without vowels, Kept In Taskent.

There are many things in this respect which shows that the hadith "Beware of matters newly begun, for every matter newly begun is innovation, every innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in hell" does not indicate an absolute generalization.

The Prophet s.a.w. was given special gifts. One of them was that his ummah would not agree commonly on a mistake! To the best of my knowledge, nobody ever complained about the above innovation, as well the use of computers and internet for a means of seeking knowledge, using airplanes for going to Hajj rather than camels and so forth.

The example above also shows: There are newly invented things which help to preserve the original Islam! And to my understanding, like the establishment of the mazhabs was protecting the shariah and providing a methodology, the real tassauwuf was meant to protect the spirit of Islam which is "total dedication to Allah Most High"! It was never meant to introduce new things on which not all Muslims would be able to agree on!

This knowledge is a branch of the sciences of Sacred Law that originated within the Ummah. From the first, the way of such people had also been considered the path of truth and guidance by the early Muslim community and its notables, of the Companions of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), those who were taught by them, and those who came after them.

It is true; the term tassauwuf did not exist at the time of the sahabas r.a. But so did the names of many other branches of Islamic science! They did not exist because there was no need for them to exist! The simple reason was that the sahabas had Rasulallah s.a.w. as a shining example just in front of them!

Now let us calmly reflect for a moment: If Islam would be only about the law which can be contained in hadith, in words, shouldn't we have then a much more exalted status than the sahabas r.a.? Because we have nearly all ahadith compiled, and with the help of the computer I can get any ayat or hadith about any subject in an instance, whereas the knowledge of hadith of each sahaba was limited! In addition we have also the modern science to our disposal which gives us also a much broader view! So do we have a better status than the sahabas r.a. then?

Again, the sahabas r.a. exalted us so much in rank because they had Rasulallah s.a.w. in front of them and got the spirit of Islam! They saw and felt what it really means to put Islam into practice and to live it!

The spirit of Islam lies in the prophetic sunnah. The sincerity to Allah that it entails (al-Ihsan) was the rule among the earliest Muslims, to whom this was simply a state of being without a name, while it only became a distinct discipline when the majority of the Community had drifted away and changed from this state. Muslims of subsequent generations required systematic effort to attain it, and it was because of the change in the Islamic environment after the earliest generations, that a discipline by the name of tassauwuf came to exist.

Take the shalat as an example: You can compile all ahadith concerning shalat and do it outwardly perfectly, but does it mean you get khusyu and close to Allah because of that? Not at all! Not if you do not have the spirit! And Rasulallah s.a.w. said that at the end of times of shalat would remain only the name! That is now!

Imagine the khusyu of the sahabas r.a.: You could draw an arrow out of their body at the time of shalat and they would not feel it (so reported from Ali r.a.)! Whereas nowadays a single mosquito is able to spoil our shalat!

This spirit, "to worship Allah as though one sees Him", had to get preserved like the shariah had to get preserved, which of course was a much more difficult task! And the Muslims failed in that task! Rasulallah s.a.w. said:

"Truly, Allah does not remove Sacred Knowledge by taking it out of servants, but rather by taking back the souls of Islamic scholars [in death], until, when He has not left a single scholar, the people take the ignorant as leaders, who are asked for and who give Islamic legal opinion without knowledge, misguided and misguiding." [Fath al-Bari, 1.194, hadith 100]

I think it is quite obvious that with this hadith not the outward science of shariah is meant but the loss of the spirit of Islam because we see that the outward science is still well preserved, especially in the age of the computer! But the spirit is gone! And only Allah can revive it! Don’t call it “Sufism” as this term got sufficiently screwed up! Let's call it 'Ihsan'!

The major guardians of shariah are the schools of jurisprudence, which did produce a system to classify the sources and try to derive the right understanding (fiqh). It also makes it possible for us to quickly find a solution to a problem without the need of browsing through the whole Qur’an and Hadith looking for the answer. An interview that took place in Damascus between Professor Muhammad Sa‘id al-Buti, and a Salafi teacher demonstrated this. Buti asked him:

Buti: “What is your method for understanding the rulings of Allah? Do you take them from the Qur’an and sunna, or from the Imams of ijtihad?”

Salafi: “I examine the positions of the Imams and their evidences for them, and then take the closest of them to the evidence of the Qur’an and Sunna.”

Buti: “You have five thousand Syrian pounds that you have saved for six months. You then buy merchandise and begin trading with it. When do you pay zakat on the merchandise, after six months, or after one year?”

Salafi: [He thought, and said,] “Your question implies you believe zakat should be paid on business capital.”

Buti: “I am just asking. You should answer in your own way. Here in front of you is a library containing books of Qur’anic exegesis, hadith, and the works of the mujtahid Imams.”

Salafi: [He reflected for a moment, then said,] “Brother, this is din, and not simple matter. One could answer from the top of one’s head, but it would require thought, research, and study; all of which take time. And we have come to discuss something else.”

Here it becomes obvious that even an Ulama, a hadith expert, cannot answer quickly a straightforward question, which can arise anytime! And it also obvious that an average Muslim has not the resources and time to investigate, let alone trying to judge the evidences of a mujtahid imam, but that he has to entrust himself to a reliable source which already examined all the different ayaat and ahadith concerning a certain problem and derived a ruling from it. And that brings us to the 3rd point:

3) If we want to reach unity, we have to agree to a code of law without being fanatic about it! With all due respect, but only an idiot can believe that we are able to know what exactly happened more than 1400 years ago! Only the Qur’an is protected by Allah (but even the Qur’an has different ways of reading), not the Hadith! Only Allah knows to which extent some munafiqs were able to distort the Hadith. Therefore, there must be tolerance among the Muslims!

We cannot impose on others the wearing of tschadar if there are hadith saying that face and hands may be seen, claiming the hadith to be dhaif. We also cannot keep on fishing our neighbour’s foot in prayer when we see he dislikes it as we deem joining the feet in prayer of the outmost importance because of the strong support for it in hadith although no mazhab shares this interpretation but sees the ahadith figuratively.

A mazhab is human-made! It therefore implies errors! But it is not up to the average Muslim to just come up with a hadith and to challenge the mujtahid imams, telling that this hadith contradicts their ruling, without knowing how the imams came to their conclusion! Or even that people without scholarly backing start to say this and that mutawatir hadith is a fake because to his opinion it contradicts the main body of hadith or the Qur’an!

So we are not slaves of a mazhab following it blindly, but we are just choosing one as the most trustworthy source in order to avoid debates about secondary issues like the one if I have to move my index finger while in tashahud or not! InsyaAllah it will not take long anymore until al-Mahdi reveals himself and will rectify all things! At this time, most of us will be quite surprised of what Islam really is! And all mazhabs, all these invented names like Sufi, Da’i, Salafi, Shia, people of tawhid and the sunnah and so forth, will cease to exist then! Al-Mahdi is the uniting agent as shaitan is the dividing agent!

We are Muslims and should not be anything else! We are all brothers and have to unite now if we want to be successful! And this is not possible without sacrifices! We have to give up things which divide us although we may love them and agree again to a common base. This base in its nature is not perfect and only temporary … until the rightly guided Amir of this ummah arrives!

And say: "Truth has (now) arrived, and Falsehood perished: for Falsehood is (by its nature) bound to perish." (Al-Isra' 81)

Allah gives us a parable in the fruit-tree: A fruit-tree has to get cut back once in a while in order that it grows healthy and bears more fruit!

We may not try to impose our interpretation of shariah on others, as long as the others have a support in Qur’an and Sunnah or legal opinion of a mazhab.

I am sure, the rightly group out of the 73 groups, is the one who still can reach out to all other groups and considers them all as brothers and is striving for unity! They are the ones who really love the Prophet s.a.w. and realize who much he would sorrow about his ummah seeing it in such a state of mutual hatred instead of brotherhood! They are the ones who seek Al-Ahad and Al-Wahid!

Our God is One! And our ummah should be also one!

Narrated Muawiya:

I heard Allah's Apostle saying, "If Allah wants to do good to a person, He makes him comprehend the religion. I am just a distributor, but the grant is from Allah. (And remember) that this nation (true Muslims) will keep on following Allah's teachings strictly and they will not be harmed by any one going on a different path till Allah's order (Day of Judgment) is established." [Bukhari; Volume: 1, Book Number: 3, Hadith Number: 71]