For children, - Hijab for Muslim Men: Lower your Gaze?(Male Hijab, Beautiful Stories for Muslim Men)

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"There was a companion of ours in Glasgow who became ill and was hospitalized. He was admitted for three days and on the fourth day the attendant nurse said, "Marry me".
He [the brother in Glasgow] asked, "Why? I am a Muslim, you and I cannot become companions."
She said, "I will become Muslim".
"What's the reason?" it was asked.
She said, "In all my time that I have served in hospitals, except you, I have never seen a man lower his gaze in front of a woman. In my life you are the first person who lowers his gaze when seeing a woman. I come, and you close your eyes. Such great modesty can be taught by none other than a true religion."
The protection of one's gaze entered Islam in her. She testified to the Oneness of Allah (SWT) and became a Muslim. They both got married. By now, the same woman was and is the means of bringing so many other girls and women into Islam.
In a Hadith, the Prophet Muhammad (saw) is reported as having said: "And the eyes commit zina (adultery). Their zina is gazing."
The Prophet Muhammad (saw) commanded Imam Ali (as) said: "Ali! Do not look once after another, for the first look is for you (since it happens accidentally) while the second is against you."

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Discover Islam, - * The world of Islam

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A fifth of humankind follows Islam, the fastest growing and perhaps most misunderstood religion on earth. Faced with a secular modern world, Muslims are turning anew to the roots of their faith.
Borne aloft five times a day, fromShanghaitoChicago,JakartatoTimbuktu, Islam's call to prayer stirs the soul of devout Muslims everywhere. Whether cast from metal loudspeakers over teeming city streets or lifted as the murmured song of camel drivers kneeling in the sand, it begins with the same Arabic phrase Muslims have used for nearly 1400 years, Islam's melodic paean to the Creator: "Allaahu Akbar -- God is Great."
Some 1.3 billion human beings -- one person in five -- heed Islam's call in the modern world, embracing the religion at a rate that makes it the fastest growing on Earth, with 80 percent of believers now outside the Arab world.
The term Islam, is an Arabic word meaning "submission to God," with its etymological roots firmly planted in "salaam", or peace.
Muslims revere all Prophets of God, including Moses and Jesus, may Allaah exalt their mention, and regard the books revealed to these prophets – Torah and Injeel -- as an integral part of their tradition. They disagree with Christians about the divinity of Jesus, may Allaah exalt his mention, but honor him as an especially esteemed Messenger from God. The ultimate Messenger for Muslims is the Prophet Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam )may Allaah exalt his mention(.
Born about 570 CE at Makkah, Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, was an orphan raised by his grandfather and uncle. He grew up to be a modest and respected businessman who rejected the widespread polytheism of his day and turned to the One God.
At about age 40, Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, retreated to a cave in the mountains outside Makkah to meditate. There, he was visited by the archangel Gabriel, who began reciting to him the Word of God. Until his death 23 years later, Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, passed along these revelations to a growing band of followers, including many who wrote down the words or committed them to memory.
These verses became the Quran, or "recitation," the literal Word of God and confirmation of the real Jewish and Christian Scriptures.
The Quran consists of 114 chapters, and covers everything from the nature of God )Compassionate and Merciful( to laws governing the mundane affairs of men. Among its commands are )what mean(:"Do not usurp one another's property by unjust means"and"Do not kill anyone which God has forbidden."
The Quran is also a source of the pure Arabic language memorized by Muslim school children and recited by Muslim adults on every important occasion.
One of the five pillars of Islam, along with the two testimonies of faith )Shahaadah(, prayer )Salaah(, fasting the month of Ramadan )Sawm(, charity )Zakaah(, the pilgrimage )Hajj( is required of all who can manage it at least once in a lifetime.
By the time the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, passed away in 632 CE, Islam was established throughout the Arabian Peninsula, bringing peace and unity to the tribes for the first time in memory. Within a century of his death the armies of Islam, empowered by faith, had conquered a vast swathe of territory -- stretching fromIndiato the Atlantic coasts ofSpainandPortugal, including North Africa and theMiddle East.
This Islamic world built on the intellectual achievements of other civilizations, sponsoring an explosion of learning unparalleled until the Renaissance.
At a time when Europe was languishing in the early Middle Ages, Muslim scholars and thinkers were giving the world a great center of Islamic learning )Al-Azhar inCairo( and refining everything -- from architecture to the use of numbers. At the same time, seagoing Muslim traders were spreading the faith to southern Asia,Chinaand the east coast ofAfrica.
Flourishing by the end of the first millennium, the realm of Islam was tested as western Europe, spurred by its contact with the Islamic near East, awoke and lashed out, launching a series of armed Crusades to wrest Jerusalem from Muslim control.
Though fragmented and initially overcome, Muslims rallied to ultimately defeat the invading Christian armies, whose blood-soaked legacy -- the indiscriminate killing of thousands of innocent Muslim and Christian Arabs, and the Jews of Jerusalem -- lives on in the minds of people to this day.
As Europe rose to glory during the Renaissance and beyond, the Islamic world continued to thrive after the creation of theOttoman Empirein the late 1200s CE. This powerful state fell at the end of World War I, resulting in the subdivision of its mostly Muslim lands into the Middle Eastern countries we know today.
Although a few Muslim nations are wealthy from oil resources, most are poor and increasingly demoralized by their position in the world. Disaffected and disenfranchised, many people in these societies are turning to Islam to assert their identity and reclaim power over their own lives.
In addition many Muslims, especially in the Arab world, are angry at theUnited States’ continued support ofIsrael, the war and the economic sanctions against ‘Iraq, which are widely perceived to have hit the people of ‘Iraq-- who are fellow Muslims -- right between the eyes.
For most of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, Islam is a way of life, a discipline based on looking at the world through the eyes of faith.
"Islam gave me something that was lacking in my life," says Jennifer Calvo of Washington, DC.
Calvo is 28 and looks as if she just stepped out of a painting by Botticelli, with aquiline features and striking blue eyes, set off by a white head scarf tucked neatly into her full-length robe. Calvo was raised Catholic and works as a registered nurse.
Two years ago, as people have done for 1,400 years, Jennifer became a Muslim by simply declaring the words: "Laa ilaaha illallaah, Muhammad Rasoolullaah” )There is none worthy of being worshipped except Allaah )God(, and Muhammad is His Messenger(."
"Everything is so much simpler now," she said. "It's just me and God. For the first time in my life I'm at peace."
For Calvo and most Muslims on Earth, that is what Islam's call to prayer represents. Kneeling to God five times a day, in unison, facing Makkah from wherever they happen to be, they find peace in an act of surrender.

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Discover Islam, - * The revolutionary role of Islam – I

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As a result of ignorance the evil known as the worship of natural phenomena was born in human society. Man attributed divinity to mere creatures. He began to worship all the things in the world, holding them to be gods. Owing to this intellectual aberration, idolatry became a rooted feature of human civilization. Not even the coming of thousands of Prophets and reformers could bring about any change in this state of affairs, in the practical sense. The rejection of the Prophets brought down on the deniers the chastisement of God, butshirk)idolatry( could never be wiped out from society. Then God Almighty took it upon Himself to intervene. One major manifestation of this Divine intervention in human history was the emergence of the Prophet Muhammad, salallaahu alayhi wa sallam. An American encyclopedia has very appropriately described his coming as having “changed the course of human history.”
French historian, Henri Pirenne, has expressed it thus: ‘Islam changed the face of the globe. The traditional order of history was overthrown.”
The Quran, in defining the objective of the divine intervention, has this to say )what means(:"It is He that has sent forth His Prophet with guidance and the true faith, so that he may exalt it above all religions. God is the All-sufficient witness."]Quran 48:28[
This has found expression in ahadithrecorded in Saheeh Al-Bukhaari:"He will not depart from this world as God has decreed, unless and until these people are brought to the straight path."
This shows that, for the Prophets of the past, may Allah exalt their mention, communication alone was required, whereas for the Prophet Muhammad, salallaahu alayhi wa sallam, not just communication but also implementation was required.
The task of the earlier prophets was completed with the full communication of the message to the people. But the Divine plan in sending the Prophet Muhammad, salallaahu alayhi wa sallam, to the world was to bring about a practical revolution. His message could not, therefore, remain at the theoretical stage.
It being beyond human capacity to make the end result a certainty, how was the Prophet’s, salallaahu alayhi wa sallam, message to be translated into reality? It all became possible due to the special Divine succor extended to the Prophet, salallaahu alayhi wa sallam, by God Almighty. This took the form of a Divine plan which had two basic aspects to it: one, to provide the Prophet, salallaahu alayhi wa sallam, with a powerful and trustworthy team, and the other to significantly weaken the enemies of monotheism by means of a special strategy, so that the Prophet, salallaahu alayhi wa sallam, and his companions, may Allaah be pleased with them, could easily dominate their opponents.
The first part of this Divine plan was brought to completion in the form of the settlement of Ismaa’eel, son of Prophet Ibraaheem, may Allaah exalt their mention, in the unpopulated desert of Arabia, two thousand five hundred years ago. At that time it was a totally isolated place situated far from the centres of civilization. There, a community was raised by Ismaaeel ibn Ibraaheem, may Allaah exalt their mention, trained in the desert atmosphere where there was nothing save nature. As a natural result of this unadulterated atmosphere, )free from all man-made pollution,( the human qualities of the inhabitants of the desert were fully preserved. It was like a vast natural training camp. It took more than two thousand years to evolve a nation of such high calibre as to be called a “nation of heroes” by a western scholar. In the history of the Arabs, this nation is known as the Ismaailites. Despite religious perversion having set in, so distinguished were they in human values—thanks to their particular training—that they had no peers among those who came before or after them.
The Prophet Muhammad, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, one of the distinguished members of the Banu Ismaa’eel, struggled for about thirteen years in Makkah and ten years in Madeenah. Ultimately, more than one hundred thousand people believed in him and joined his mission. Each and every one of his companions, may Allaah be pleased with them, possessed a strong and dependable character. In this way, the Prophet Muhammad, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, in an exceptional way, secured a team by which he could bring the message of the Prophets, may exalt their mention, to fruition—taking the prophetic mission from the theoretical stage of ideology to the practical stage of revolution.
The next part of this Divine plan consisted of weakening these anti-monotheism forces so considerably that the last Prophet might subjugate them and usher in the desired revolution in the very first generation itself. To achieve this end, the Arabian tribes remained engaged for a long period of time in bloody, internecine warfare. Consequently, when the Prophet Muhammad, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, was sent to the world, the idolatrous tribes of Arabia, having so weakened themselves, could not continue their resistance for long. This enabled the Prophet Muhammad, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, to overcome Arabia and root out idolatry completely within a short period of time.
In those days there were two great empires outside of Arabia. These empires kept the major parts of Asia and Africa under their full control. Their power was so great that the Arabs could not even have dreamed of overcoming them. Despite this extremely out of proportion difference, how did it become possible for the Arabs of the very first generation, to conquer both these empires—the Sassanid and Roman—in such a decisive way as to crush them absolutely, resulting in the dominance of monotheism over idolatry throughout this region? This miracle became a reality owing to a special Divine strategy, which is paralleled by the case of the Romans:
Allaah Almighty Says what means:"The Romans have been defeated in a neighbouring land. But after their defeat they shall themselves gain victory within a few years."]Quran, 30:1-3[
History shows that from 602 to 628 A.D., extremely extraordinary events took place between these two great empires.
First, the royal families in the respective countries clashed internally with one another, and in consequence, many individuals of great political worth were killed. In fact, these feuds gave a death blow to these empires, shaking them to the very roots. Subsequently, certain factors led to the destructive collision of these empires with one another. First the armies of the Sassanid empire crossed the border of the Roman empire to attack it. Circumstances proved favourable and they succeeded to the extent that the Roman Emperor Heraclius decided to flee from his Palace in Constantinople. But again, events took a new turn. Heraclius regained his lost confidence and after making full preparations, attacked the Sassanid empire, destroyed their armed forces and penetrated right into the heart of Jerusalem.
These civil wars, lasting for about twenty five years, considerably weakened both these empires. Therefore, during the pious caliphate when the Arab forces entered the Roman and Sassanid empires, they managed to advance with great speed.

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Discover Islam, - * The universal Da’wah of Islam

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The Da’wah of the Prophet Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, was not restricted to a particular time or place, rather it was a universal Da’wah; one to last until the end of time.
There is much evidence to substantiate this and some wonderful examples can be found in the Quran. Allaah clarifies the timeless prophetic role of Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, in the following verses )which mean(:
"And We have not sent you )O Muhammad( except as a giver of glad tidings and as a warner to all mankind."]Quran 34:28[
"Say )O Muhammad(: 'O mankind! Verily, I am sent to you all as the Messenger of Allaah."]Quran 7:158[
"Blessed be He Who sent down the criterion )of right and wrong, i.e., this Quran( to His slave )Muhammad( that he may be a Warner to the 'Aalameen )mankind and Jinn(."]Quran 25:1[
There is a Hadeeth in which the Messenger of Allaah, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said:"I have been given superiority over the other Prophets in six respects: I have been given words which are concise but comprehensive in meaning; I have been helped by terror )in the hearts of enemies(; spoils have been made lawful to me; the earth has been made for me clean and a place of worship; I have been sent to all of mankind and the line of Prophets is closed with me."]Muslim[
The proof that the Da’wah )call( of the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, was also for the Jinn is manifested in the statement of Allaah Almighty )which means(:"And )remember( when We sent towards you )O Muhammad ( Nafran )three to ten persons( of the Jinns, )quietly( listening to the Quran. When they stood in the presence thereof, they said: 'Listen in silence!' And when it was finished, they returned to their people, as warners. They said: 'O our people! Verily, we have heard a Book )this Quran( sent down after Moses, confirming what came before it, it guides to the truth and to a Straight Path )i.e., Islam(. O our people, respond )with obedience( to Allaah's caller, and believe in him )i.e., believe in that which Muhammad has brought from Allaah and follow him(. He )Allaah( will forgive you of your sins, and will save you from a painful torment )i.e., Hell-fire(.'"]Quran 46: 29-31[
Thus, the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, spread his Da’wah outside of his own people, and indeed, outside the Arab world entirely. The introduction of Islamic Da’wah spread globally after a truce was made with the Quraysh in the treaty of Hudaybiyyah. He, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, sent messengers and wrote letters to the various kings of his time. The first of these messengers according to Ibn Al-Qayyim, may Allaah have mercy upon him, was ‘Amr ibn ‘Umayyah ad-Dimry, may Allaah be pleased with him, who was sent to Negus, King of Abyssinia )Ethiopia(. He carried a letter, rather an invitation, which stated: "Come to a word that is just between us and you, that we worship none but Allaah, and that we associate no partners with Him; and that none of us shall take others as lords besides Allaah. Then, if they turn away, say: "Bear witness that we are Muslims.”
Thus, the king and whoever was with him believed in the message.
The Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, also sent ‘Abdullaah ibn Huthayfah, may Allaah be pleased with him, to Chosroes, ruler of Persia, with a letter that stated: "In the name of Allaah, the Beneficent, the Most Merciful, from Muhammad, Messenger of Allaah to Chosroes, Shah of Persia. Peace be upon those who follow the truth, who believe in Allaah and His Prophet and who testify that there is no divinity but Allaah and that Muhammad is His Messenger. I call you with the Call of Allaah, because I am His Messenger, sent that I may give warning to him who is living, and that the Word )charge( may be justified against the disbelievers, that if they do not accept His Message, they must live with the consequence. Become Muslim and you will be safe. If you refuse, then upon you is the sin of the Magians."
When Chosroes read this, he tore the letter up, so the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said: "May Allaah also tear up his kingdom."
The Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, also wrote a letter to Heraclius, the ruler of the Byzantine, in which he said: "In the name of Allaah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. This letter is from Muhammad the slave of Allaah and His Messenger to Heraclius, the ruler of the Byzantine. Peace be upon those who follow the right path. Furthermore, I invite you to Islam and if you become a Muslim you will be safe, and Allaah will double your reward, and if you reject this invitation of Islam you will be committing a sin by misguiding your subjects. And I recite to you Allaah's statement )which means(:"Say )O Muhammad(: 'O people of the Scripture: Come to a word that is just between us and you, that we worship none but Allaah, and that we associate no partners with Him, and that none of us shall take others as lords besides Allaah.’ Then, if they turn away, say: ‘Bear witness that we are Muslims.’"]Quran 3:64[
The Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, similarly sent numerous messages to other kings, each conveying an identical meaning as those above.
These letters re-affirm an understood reality – that Islam is a universal religion, for all creation. Thus, it was a duty upon the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, to convey the pure message of Islam, calling everyone he knew, by every means available at that time with beautiful preaching in its purest form.

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