Sunday 28 December 2008

supplicate for the ummah and the people of gaza in particular

with the news of large scale attacks against gaza, ongoing threats and blockades by the zionist occupation, many fresh images of the unnecessary destruction of buildings and of the suffering and abuse of the population, i bring a reminder.

do not sit back and say 'what can i do?' you can do something, are you a muslim? then at the very least you have to hate the suffering and oppression of your fellow muslims in your heart, and by your tongue you have to make duaa, supplicate to Allah to ease their suffering and hasten their mourning and remove the oppressors from our land, and supplicate that Allah unites the ummah again so we are not so weak to be abused and humiliated as we are now.

the following is a relevant excerpt from islamQA fatwa #7837 ( How can we support our brothers who are in need or who have suffered disasters?)

The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “The relationship of the believer towards the people of faith is like that of the head to the body. The believer feels the pain of the people of faith just as the body feels the pain of the head.” (Narrated by Imaam Ahmad).

Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allaah have mercy on him) neatly summed up the ways in which a believer can support his fellow-believer. He said:There are different ways of supporting a fellow believer: with one’s wealth, with one’s position of

authority or power, by means of physical service, by offering sincere advice and guidance, by making supplication (du’aa’) and asking for forgiveness for them, and by feeling their pain. The level of one’s support will be affected by the level of one's faith. The weaker a person's faith, the weaker his support will be; the stronger the faith, the stronger the support. The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) was the greatest of all people in his support for his companions, so the more closely his followers follow him, the greater will be their support for their fellow-believers. (al-Fawaa’id, 1/171)

Saturday 27 December 2008

camp reminder

Just a quick reminder about the camp, the bus is almost booked out, contact us ASAP if you still want to come and haven't confirmed, we are leaving on the 31st bi'ithnillah.

main points of todays sermon 26/12/08

alhamdulillah wa sallaallahu ala muhammad

Today the khateeb, may Allah have preserve him, spoke mainly about the issue of the christmas and what it is and what it means to muslims. As most of us know christmas is not part of christianity and certainly not part of islam, rather it is a pagan festival modified by the christian movement in order to ease the pagans into christianity, there is many researches, by non muslims, about this issue so i don't need to go into details here.

In the second part the khateeb, may Allah bless him, mentioned firstly about the ruling of celebrating and congratulating non muslims on their festival days and then mentioned other innovated acts practiced these days.
The khateeb quoted several scholars including imam ibnul qayyim who said: "Congratulating the disbelievers on the rituals that belong only to them is forbidden by consensus(ijma'), as is congratulating them on their festivals and fasts by saying ‘A happy festival to you’ or ‘May you enjoy your festival,’ and so on. If the one who says this has been saved from disbelief, it is still forbidden. It is like congratulating someone for prostrating to the cross, or even worse than that. It is as great a sin as congratulating someone for drinking wine, or murdering someone, or having illicit sexual relations (outside marriage), and so on. Many of those who have no respect for their religion fall into this error; they do not realize the offensiveness of their actions. Whoever congratulates a person for his disobedience or bid’ah or kufr exposes himself to the wrath and anger of Allaah."

many more similar statements were made by scholars to the same effect, for more detail on these rulings you can visit sheikh saleh al-munajids website with the following links:
http://www.islamqa.com/en/ref/947
http://www.islamqa.com/en/cat/148/ref/islamqa/1130
http://www.islamqa.com/en/cat/148/ref/islamqa/11427

As for other innovated acts these include birthdays and saints feast days, the prophet SAWS instructed us on two yearly festivals, eid al fitr and eid al adha, and the weekly (lesser) eid which is jumaah (friday), and he SAWS never celebrated a persons birthday and in fact warned us in authentic narrations to not exaggerate his status as the christians did with prophet jesus peace be upon him, such innovated festivals are useless and forbidden whether it has a good intention or not as the prophet SAWS said said: “Whoever does something that is a not part of this matter of ours (Islam) will have it rejected”.

So the khutbah was alhamdulillah a timely reminder about these issues which certainly we see a lot of in the ummah and we ask Allah, Al Hadiy, to guide the ummah back to the straight way, reestablish the khilafat and assist those who are striving for that in every vocation.

Subhanaka rabbana wa bihamdika ashhadu anlaa ilaha illa allah astaghfiruka wa atoobu ilayka.

Monday 22 December 2008

Paintball aftermath

Alhamdulillah our first paintball experience went well today, with 24 participating brothers making two teams, i think everyone was exhausted by the time we left and everyone has at least one bruise they can show off to their families, i have heaps including 4 on my head but as the supervisor said 'this is an extreme sport', so i say a few bruises afterward doesn't spoil the great fun that one has painting your opponents orange.

thankyou to the organising brothers jazahumallahu khayran, and thankyou to the venue staff, who provided a safe and fun experience for us.

Thursday 18 December 2008

Mind Body Spirit Festival November 2008

Here is glimpse of our work at the mind body Spirit festival this past november, may Allah azza wa jal greatly reward those who participated and sponsored our presence at the event.

Video is 10mb


Sunday 14 December 2008

upcoming ASWJ camp 2009

for melbourne bookings, contact brother tamer, email us for his number or call into the centre.

click on poster image to view:

paintball deferred for next weekend

paintball for brothers is canceled today because of rain and shura decision, next weekend inshaallah its on, any brothers returning from hajj will also be able to participate bi'ithnillah there is still positions available, please come down to the centre to sign up or ring us.

cost is $50 for the morning and 200 paintballs, $20 for extra 100 paintballs or cheaper for larger amounts, we will probably have a bbq afterwards but that is to be confirmed transport is your own or carpool with others venue is in cockatoo about 40 mins away.

Thursday 11 December 2008

Prayer times in the centre as of 12/12/08

FAJR - 4:30 AM

ZUHR - 1:30 PM

ASR - 5:30 PM

MAGHRIB - please refer to calendar

ISHA - 10:30 PM

JUMU'AH - 1:30 PM

Wednesday 10 December 2008

eid mubarak

Alhamdulillah wa salatallahu ala muhammad wa 'ala alihi wa sahbihi.
to my brothers and sisters in islam asalaamu alaykum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuhu
to other viewers asalaamu 'ala manitaba al huda

Eid mubarak wa taqabalallahu minna wa minkum

as you can see our blog has been neglected since our blog hero and example of the best of us, abul-layth hafithahallah, has left the comfort of his family and homeland in order to seek beneficial knowledge, may Allah azza wa jal make us all sincere to Him and forgive our sins and shortcomings and make us all saaliheen.

inshaallah i will update as best i can and as regularly as i can, again our intention here is to keep our people aware of what we are doing down here, and to bring attention and support to our dawah, without diverting attention from the main ASWJ website, may Allah grant us success and reward accordingly His deserving servants.

watch this space as inshaallah shortly we will present:
  • updated prayer times at the musallah
  • mind body spirit festival report including a video of the event
  • annual camp announcement (1-4 jan 2009 in Sydney)
  • paintball skirmish this weekend 12 dec (contact us soon as deposit is required tomorrow)

jazakumallahu khayran wasalaamu alaykum.