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Monthly Archives: February 2012

Who is Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him)?

Who is Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him)?

Language: English
Formation : Yusuf Estes
Reveiwers : Muhammad AbdulRaoof
From issues : http://www.rasoulallah.net – Website of Rasoulullah (peace be upon him)
Short Description:
Prophet Muhammad, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him, is the man beloved by more than 1.2 billion Muslims. He is the man who taught us patience in the face of adversity, and taught us to live in this world but seek eternal life in the hereafter. It was to Prophet Muhammad that God revealed the Quran. Along with this Book of guidance God sent Prophet Muhammad, whose behavior and high moral standards are an example to us all. Prophet Muhammad’s life was the Quran. He understood it, he loved it and he lived his life based on its standards. He taught us to recite Quran, to live by its principles and to love it. When Muslims declare their faith in One God, they also declare their belief that Muhammad is the slave and final messenger of God.
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Posted by on February 27, 2012 in Know him !

 

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Fasting twice a week can help protect against brain diseases, scientists

Fasting can help protect against brain diseases, scientists say

Claim that giving up almost all food for one or two days a week can counteract impact of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s

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A vertical slice through the brain of a patient with Alzheimer’s, left, compared with a normal brain, right. Photograph: Alfred Pasieka/Science Photo Library

Fasting for regular periods could help protect the brain against degenerative illnesses, according to US scientists.
Researchers at the National Institute on Ageing in Baltimore said they had found evidence which shows that periods of stopping virtually all food intake for one or two days a week could protect the brain against some of the worst effects of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other ailments.
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Professor Mark Mattson
“Reducing your calorie intake could help your brain, but doing so by cutting your intake of food is not likely to be the best method of triggering this protection. It is likely to be better to go on intermittent bouts of fasting, in which you eat hardly anything at all, and then have periods when you eat as much as you want,” said Professor Mark Mattson, head of the institute’s laboratory of neurosciences.
“In other words, timing appears to be a crucial element to this process,” Mattson told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver.
Cutting daily food intake to around 500 calories – which amounts to little more than a few vegetables and some tea – for two days out of seven had clear beneficial effects in their studies, claimed Mattson, who is also professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Scientists have known for some time that a low-calorie diet is a recipe for longer life. Rats and mice reared on restricted amounts of food increase their lifespan by up to 40%. A similar effect has been noted in humans. But Mattson and his team have taken this notion further. They argue that starving yourself occasionally can stave off not just ill-health and early death but delay the onset of conditions affecting the brain, including strokes. “Our animal experiments clearly suggest this,” said Mattson.
He and his colleagues have also worked out a specific mechanism by which the growth of neurones in the brain could be affected by reduced energy intakes. Amounts of two cellular messaging chemicals are boosted when calorie intake is sharply reduced, said Mattson. These chemical messengers play an important role in boosting the growth of neurones in the brain, a process that would counteract the impact of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
“The cells of the brain are put under mild stress that is analogous to the effects of exercise on muscle cells,” said Mattson. “The overall effect is beneficial.”
The link between reductions in energy intake and the boosting of cell growth in the brain might seem an unlikely one, but Mattson insisted that there were sound evolutionary reasons for believing it to be the case. “When resources became scarce, our ancestors would have had to scrounge for food,” said Mattson. “Those whose brains responded best – who remembered where promising sources could be found or recalled how to avoid predators — would have been the ones who got the food. Thus a mechanism linking periods of starvation to neural growth would have evolved.”
This model has been worked out using studies of fasting on humans and the resulting impact on their general health – even sufferers from asthma have shown benefits, said Mattson – and from experiments on the impact on the brains of animals affected by the rodent equivalent of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Now Mattson’s team is preparing to study the impact of fasting on the brain by using MRI scans and other techniques.
If this final link can be established, Mattson said that a person could optimise his or her brain function by subjecting themselves to bouts of “intermittent energy restriction”. In other words, they could cut their food intake to a bare minimum for two days a week, while indulging for the other five. “We have found that from a psychological point of view that works quite well. You can put up with having hardly any food for a day if you know that for the next five you can eat what you want.”

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O you who believe fasting is decreed for you, as it was decreed for those before you, that you may attain salvation. Specific days (are designated for fasting); if one is ill or traveling, an equal number of other days may be substituted. Those who can fast, but with great difficulty, may substitute feeding one poor person for each day of breaking the fast. If one volunteers (more righteous works), it is better. But fasting is the best for you, if you only knew. Quran 2:183-185

((يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ كُتِبَ عَلَيْكُمُ الصِّيَامُ كَمَا كُتِبَ عَلَى الَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَتَّقُونَ. أَيَّامًا مَّعْدُودَاتٍ فَمَن كَانَ مِنكُم مَّرِيضًا أَوْ عَلَى سَفَرٍ فَعِدَّةٌ مِّنْ أَيَّامٍ أُخَرَ وَعَلَى الَّذِينَ يُطِيقُونَهُ فِدْيَةٌ وَعَلَى الَّذِينَ يُطِيقُونَهُ فِدْيَةٌ طَعَامُ مِسْكِينٍ فَمَنْ تَطَوَّعَ خَيْراً فَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لَهُ وَأَنْ تَصُومُوا خَيْرٌ لَكُمْ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ تَعْلَمُونَ ))

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It was narrated that ‘Aishah said:

“The Messenger of Allah used to be keen to fast on Mondays and Thursday.” (Hasan)
أَخْبَرَنَا إِسْحَاقُ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ، قَالَ أَنْبَأَنَا عُبَيْدُ اللَّهِ بْنُ سَعِيدٍ الأُمَوِيُّ، قَالَ حَدَّثَنَا سُفْيَانُ، عَنْ ثَوْرٍ، عَنْ خَالِدِ بْنِ مَعْدَانَ، عَنْ عَائِشَةَ، قَالَتْ كَانَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم يَتَحَرَّى الاِثْنَيْنِ وَالْخَمِيسَ ‏.‏

http://sunnah.com/urn/1123710

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Source
http://www.guardian….ases-scientists
http://esciencenews…..scientists.say
http://healthwirenew…y-the-guardian/

 
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Posted by on February 20, 2012 in News

 

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Red love and dead hearts !

Ibraaheem ibn Adham  may  Allaah  have  mercy  upon  him was once asked, “O Abu Is-haaq, why are our supplications to Allaah The Exalted not answered?” He answered, “Because your hearts have died due to ten things.” They inquired, “What are they?” Ibraaheem bin Adham  may  Allaah  have  mercy  upon  him said:

“1- You know Allaah The Almighty but fail to fulfill His due rights [properly].
2- You claim to love the Prophet,  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allaah exalt his mention ), and yet, you have abandoned his Sunnah (tradition).
3- You recite the Noble Quran but do not act upon it.
4- You claim to hate the devil, yet you obey him.
5- You enjoy the Blessings of Allaah The Exalted without fulfilling their due rights.
6- You believe in Paradise but do not exert any effort to enter it.
7- You believe in Hell but you do not seek salvation from it.
8- You believe in death but you do not prepare for it.
9- You focus your attention on others’ shortcomings while forgetting all    about yours.
10- You bury your dead but do not learn from them.”

Disbelief

Coincidentally, when one of my students, who had put a red rose in the pocket of his shirt asked me, “Why doesn’t Allaah The Exalted accept our supplications?” I told him this narration. When I asked him about the red rose in his pocket he answered, “Don’t you know that today is Valentine’s Day? I am celebrating it by putting this red rose in the pocket of my shirt.”
Undeniably, we have all heard of the “the black night of love” and the tradition of exchanging gifts and congratulations, and the foolish face paintings that are done to mark Valentine’s Day. Indeed, we know that the West has allocated a specific day to celebrate ‘red love’ during which chastity, purity and bashfulness are profoundly violated, while praiseworthy jealousy i.e., proper manly zeal, dignity and honor are slaughtered.
On this day, misguided people randomly spread repressed desires – rather, animal desires – both negative and positive, that clash with each other.
In fact, they claim that you are not a man unless you act like one in terms of sins and vice, and you are not virile enough for them if you do not have a lover to whom you can give a ‘red rose’ and with whom you can spend a ‘red night’!
You are not a refined ‘gentleman’ if you did not wish your lover, wife, or female colleague ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’.
I think we all know the story of Saint Valentine and why he was executed on February 14, 270 CE. From that day, he was given the title ‘saint’ because he sacrificed his soul for the sake of Christianity, as he supposedly fostered loving couples. Hence, Christians commemorate his death by celebrating Valentine’s Day and their act is justifiable according to their beliefs.
In fact, Americans and Europeans render this day an open day for indulging in illicit sexual relations on a large scale. Their middle schools, high schools, mixed universities, parks and malls take the necessary measures for this day by providing condoms for men in public toilets and other places where couples are more likely to meet, for protection against sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies.
Moreover, philanthropists donate all that may help ignite people’s desires on that night, and increase their obedience to the devil. In fact, Valentine’s Day for them is a permissible and almost sacred occasion that enables them to get them closer to their god!
How can Muslims allow themselves to celebrate this day that is the most heinous of the Christian festivals? Valentine’s Day is the worst feast of the disbelievers; it is the most erotic and prurient feast.
What has happened to Muslims: our brothers, sisters, sons, daughters and students who were raised to love the Prophet,  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allaah exalt his mention ), and were imbued with bashfulness, dignity, pride and magnanimity? Why do they celebrate this?
Are they commemorating Saint Valentine‘s death for having sacrificed his life for the sake of Christianity? Or is it because he used to provide refuge for loving couples?
Shaykh-ul-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah  may  Allaah  have  mercy  upon  him said, “Religious feasts are part and parcel of every religion and its rituals; Allaah The Almighty Says (what means) {For every religion We Have appointed rites which they perform…} [22:67]. For example, the Qiblah (direction of prayer) and fasting are fundamental aspects of Islam. Therefore, there is no difference between celebrating their feasts and participating in their rites. In fact, participation in celebrating their feasts implies approval of their disbelief since feasts are the most distinguished aspect of any religion.”
Valentine’s Day is a pagan and Christian celebration and it is impermissible for Muslims to celebrate it, to participate in the celebrations in any way, to sell the goods that people use to show their celebration of that day; since this is considered cooperating with them in committing sins, aggression and making a display of the disbelievers’ rites. Furthermore, it implies imitating them and indicates approval of their wrongdoings and is considered a grave sin that would result in loving the disbelievers.
The Prophet,  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allaah exalt his mention ), did not approve of celebrating the feasts of the disbelievers and that of Jaahiliyyah (pre-Islamic era). Anas  may  Allaah  be  pleased  with  him narrated that when the Prophet,  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allaah exalt his mention ), came to Madeenah, the people had two days on which they used to engage in games. He asked aboutthese two daysandsaid: “Allaah The Almighty has given you better days instead: the Day of Fitr and Al-Adh-ha.” [Abu Daawood and An-Nasaa’i]
 
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Posted by on February 16, 2012 in Relax

 

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The Islamic Workplace

Abdul Malik Mujahid

  1. Ask Him. He Listens: Dua

Turn each anxiety, each fear and each concern into a Dua (supplication). Look at it as another reason to submit to God and be in Sajdah (prostration), during which you are closest to Allah. God listens and already knows what is in your heart, but He wants you to ask Him for what you want. The Prophet said: Allah is angry with those who do not ask Him for anything (Tirmidhi).

The Prophet once said that in prayer, he would find rest and relief (Nasai). He would also regularly ask for God’s forgiveness and remain in prostration during prayer praising God (Tasbeeh) and asking for His forgiveness (Bukhari).

Allah wants you to be specific. The Prophet advised us to ask Allah for exactly what we want instead of making vague Duas. Dua is the essence of worship (the Prophet as quoted in…

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Posted by on February 15, 2012 in Uncategorized

 

Islamic Perspective on Sex

Language: English
Translators : Abdur-Rahman Murad
Short Description: The author said in his introduction,
         “Islam acknowledges the fact that one\’s sexual desire has to be satisfied. It considers fulfilling this desire a praiseworthy matter, as long as it is done within Shari\’ah limits. It is not disdainful to satisfy this desire, nor should it be neglected.\” He also said, \”In this booklet we will discuss the Islamic method of satisfying sexual desire, and how it can be transformed from a base desire into an act of worship through which a Muslim receives reward.”
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Posted by on February 9, 2012 in Sex !

 

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