On the BBC, 45 minutes long, link here.

Melvyn Bragg and guests Amira Bennison, Robert Gleave and Hugh Kennedy discuss the split between the Sunni and the Shia. This schism came to dominate early Islam, and yet it did not spring at first from a deep theological disagreement, but rather from a dispute about who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad, and on what grounds. The supporters of the Prophet’s cousin Ali argued for the hereditary principle; their opponents championed systems of selection. Ali’s followers were to become the Shia; the supporters of selection were to become Sunnis.

It is a story that takes us from Medina to Syria and on into Iraq, that takes in complex family loyalties, civil war and the killing at Karbala of the Prophet’s grandson. Husayn has been commemorated as a martyr by the Shia ever since, and his death helped to formalise the divide as first a political and then a profoundly theological separation.

Amira Bennison is Senior Lecturer in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge; Robert Gleave is Professor of Arabic Studies at the University of Exeter; Hugh Kennedy is Professor of Arabic in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

I flew Jazeera Airways to and from Dubai last weekend. On the Islamic countries airlines such as Pakistan and Kuwait Airways and Jazeera, they play a pre-recorded Islamic prayer before takeoff. The one on Jazeera is very nice and meditative sounding. It would be nice to get a good recording of it. The plane is taxiing while the prayer plays so there is a lot of background noise.

Here is a partial recording:

Found at: Pixelated Pad and Pen: Pre-Flight Islamic Prayer on Jazeera Airways

The referenced post gives the English translation as:

Allah is the Most Great. Allah is the Most Great. Allah is the Most Great. Glory is to Him Who has provided this for us though we could never have had it by our efforts. Surely, unto our Lord we are returning. O Allah, we ask You on this our journey for goodness and piety, and for works that are pleasing to You . O Allah , lighten this journey for us and make its distance easy for us . O Allah, You are our Companion on the road and the One in Whose care we leave our family . O Allah , I seek refuge in You from this journey’s hardships, and from the wicked sights in store and from finding our family and property in misfortune upon returning.

The Hadeeth narrated Abu Huraira:

The Prophet (p.b.u.h) said, “Seven people will be shaded by Allah under His shade on the day when there will be no shade except His. They are:

1. a just ruler;
2. a young man who has been brought up in the worship of Allah, (i.e. worship Allah (Alone) sincerely from his childhood),
3. a man whose heart is attached to the mosque (who offers the five compulsory congregational prayers in the mosque);
4. two persons who love each other only for Allah’s sake and they meet and part in Allah’s cause only;
5. a man who refuses the call of a charming woman of noble birth for an illegal sexual intercourse with her and says: I am afraid of Allah;
6. a person who practices charity so secretly that his left hand does not know what his right hand has given (i.e. nobody knows how much he has given in charity).
7. a person who remembers Allah in seclusion and his eyes get flooded with tears.”

Bukhari Vol. 2 : 504

Via: Thoughts of a First Wife

This reminded us look into the Old Testament at some psalms and found this Leviticus Chapter 14 regarding mold and skin diseases. Curious.

1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 “These are the regulations for any diseased person at the time of their ceremonial cleansing, when they are brought to the priest: 3 The priest is to go outside the camp and examine them. If they have been healed of their defiling skin disease, [a] 4 the priest shall order that two live clean birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop be brought for the person to be cleansed. 5 Then the priest shall order that one of the birds be killed over fresh water in a clay pot. 6 He is then to take the live bird and dip it, together with the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, into the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water. 7 Seven times he shall sprinkle the one to be cleansed of the defiling disease, and then pronounce them clean. After that, he is to release the live bird in the open fields.

From this link.

The Sufi poetry teaches the feminine qualities of joy, love, tenderness and self sacrifice on a path of true knowledge derived from the spiritual heart. The spiritual rebirth of the individual is not unlike the trial and tribulation of physical childbirth, according to the Sufis. They take the principle of divine love and use it to facilitate the process of alchemical transformation from mundane human to spiritual being.

The fanaticism that we see in modern Islam is a new development in a religion that, in its early history, was famous for its tolerance and respect for other religions. In Islam’s classical period in medieval Spain and Egypt perhaps only Buddhism rivalled Islam’s tolerance. The fundamentalism that characterises the behaviour of many of today’s Muslims is in fact anti-Koranic.

From Fatimah, Mary and the Divine Feminine in Islam via Sahaja Yoga Arabia