Morality Decline and the Path to Salvation
Reviving moral values in public life is currently a matter of urgency to preserve the [...]
Ramadan Morality
Arduous to maintain especially in summer heat, fasting is seen by many as a spiritual exercise in disciplining carnal desires of the ego. Furthermore, many people ascribe to the feeling of hunger a strong power in facilitating social responsibility towards the poor. The central and most important motivation for fasting, however, is the prospect of Paradise. Ramadan is a time when God rewards believers most generously and forgives their sins. For the duration of Ramadan, ‘the gates of Paradise are open and the gates of Hell are closed’, according to a prophetic hadith (authoritative tradition).
Fasting in Islam
Fasting in Islam is intended to be much more than an exercise in self-mortification. God the Almighty has decreed to Muslims that fasting is more than mastering the carnal “difficulties,” or physical obstacles, presented by abstention. Fasting is, instead, a path to spiritual realization, to reconciliation, and to genuine enlightenment, opening up a vision of God and community bound together through humble charity and generosity. Sawm is associated with repentance. It is essential to the worship of God. Sawm is a key element in the pursuit of personal sanctification. Sawm cultivates godliness within the believer. It engenders compassion toward the indigent.
The Spiritual Discourse Will Unify the Muslims
Abbadi, the Secretary-General of the Justice and Spirituality Movement and School, stressed the need to adopt a “spiritual discourse” because it will bring together the dispersed Muslims first and humanity as a whole, noting that spiritual excellence is what sterilizes "the germ of corruption in the hearts". He also spoke of the state of the Muslim community and the world, saying, “the world is dominated by conflict, wherein the titanic devours the strong and the strong devours the weak and the latter eats the weaker, and so on."
Preserving the Prophetic Model
The entire Muslim community is generally facing a crisis of appalling proportions. The general decline in Islamic knowledge and awareness is unprecedented in Islamic history. Religious strife and torment is being experienced in every corner of the globe. How far and distant the days of the glorious Caliphate of the Companions seems when the law of God the Almighty reigned supreme, and peace, tranquility and sublimity prevailed. When one ponders over the situation, a genuine perception is gained of the great sacrifice and effort required to restore some measure of what has been lost. An even greater realization is gained of the fact that the severity of the situation is such that only the mercy of God the Almighty and His acceptance of our invocations could resolve this sad status quo of affairs.
Farouk Bouasse.. The Death of a Virtuous Fata*
When Imam Abdessalam Yassine –God have mercy on him- chose to make Futuwwa [chivalry] among the chief characteristics of the school adherents, he didn’t choose it ex nihilo. Rather, he was fully acquainted with the truth that none can be honest in his journey to God the Almighty without being a true fata. Farouq Bouasse –God have mercy on him- was indeed an all-encompassing symbol of chivalry and a fine embodiment of its traits.
In Praise of the Imam of Renewal –Abdessalam Yassine
To desire such a nature I was not inclined; To eulogize people did not enter [...]
Imam Yassine’s Journey
Approaching his middle age, Imam Yassine’s heart witnessed a spiritual awakening that induced in him a state of deep meditation. Thus, existential questions about the truth of the Creation and the Hereafter preoccupied all his thought. To realize that seeking the favors of God does not amount to seeking His Face –Glorified be He, Imam Yassine engrossed himself in worship, dhikr, disciplining the ego, and recitation of the Qur’an for some time. At this decisive moment of his life, he met Sheikh al-Haj al-‘Abbās ibn al-Mukhtār al-Qādiri (may God have mercy upon his soul); the Butshishi Qādiri Sufi master, in whose company he spent some years.
Prelude
Imam Abdessalam Yassine has assiduously been exerting every effort to revive the Prophetic sunna in all its aspects, one of which is that ru'a (glad tidings seen through dreams and visions) are narrated and shared in the same way our noble Prophet -God bless him and grant him peace- used to do it.
Glad Tidings and Prophethood
It should now be possible for us to understand the true importance of the statement of the Prophet -God bless him and grant him peace- that glad tidings are a part of Prophethood. Anas bin Malīk narrated that God’s -God bless him and grant him peace- said, “A glad tiding of a believer is one of forty-six parts of prophethood.”...
Certainty in the Hereafter
Among the incumbent attributes of the mūmin who aspires and strives hard to attain the station of iḥsān is to be sure of the Hereafter...