19. isaal e thawab does not mean food. it can be in the form of literature too. this is also tabarruk. instead of having chapattis, curry and sweet rice; why not miss the sweet rice and spend that money [few hundred pounds?] and print some sunni literature [if you can afford it, a book otherwise a newsletter or article]. this should be given to everyone when they leave after food for free. 20. there should be a voluntary donations box at the door for people to contribute to the expenses.
18. we talked about delivering talks in english. we must then ensure that there is not a constant crossover from english to urdu to english to urdu. this is problematic because then neither the urdudaaN nor the anglophone understands the whole point. e.g. rasulAllah sallAllahu 'alaihi wasallam is noor. is baare meiN qur'an o hadith ke bahut saare dalayil hamaare ulama ne diye haiN. therefore it's ignorance to deny this fact. jo log nuraniyat ka inkaar kareiN un ki 'aql ka maatam nikaalna chaahiye. generally, the crossover isn't this bad but if a talk is in urdu, then all of it should be and if english, all of it must be. it's sometimes difficult but speakers must make a conscious effort towards this.
actually why doesn't someone summarise all the suggestions in this thread in bullet point form onto a single sheet of paper and give it to the mosque committees near them as a sort of blue-print for future events when a speaker is invited?
btw kudos to Aqdas for starting this thread--it is one of the best on sunniport. Wish someone takes notice of it though.
Sadly, this is 100% true. Still, I think rather than importing scholars creating our own home-made ones is still the better long term solution. The biggest advantage will be that these people will understand the culture of those they're preaching to --since it will be their own culture. Why is Shaykh Hamza Yusuf so popular amongst the under 30s especially? Because they GET him. People --mostly young people--pay money to go and listen to him speak for an hour. Take any of the Urdu-Punjabi speakers we have in the UK--no matter how famous they are--and you will struggle to fill a large mosque even when it is free. Hamza can completely fill out Wembley Arena when people have to PAY! You do the maths.
SA01: That is so true. Many--if not most--of the youngsters in the UK today will find going to the masjid to learn their 'sabaq' so boring and only go cos they are forced to by their parents. I really think that maulvis who teach need to take some kind of teacher-training course so that they acquire the pedagogical skills necessary to be an effective teacher. Having knowledge is pointless if you cannot teach it effectively. Methods which worked in the subcontinent a 100 years ago will not work in the 21st century. It shouldn't be too difficult to set up some kind of teacher training college for ulama and then only those who are certified should be permitted to teach. The rest should be removed from their posts until they get the requisite certificate.
Pirzadah MIH's speech is direct, to the point, and brutally honest. No wonder he faced opposition. As he says, "many of the famous 'scholars of the age' [sahib e 'asr] said I was planning opposition to Urdu and Punjabi speaking scholars when in 1985 I said we need to create English-speaking scholars as our future generations will no longer be able to understand their mother tongues!" How prescient.
Thanks for the link to Pirzada Sahib's talk. He is a real pir who seems to keep himself to himself and busy doing work and I notice that he is rarely invited to the myriad ostentatious jalsahs and 'kaanfarances' which various Sunni organisations arrange. Yet I know people who jeer his organisation behind his back saying none of them are real scholars etc.!
Brother AQ has hit the nail on the head very succintly! It pains me to the back of my teeth to think that the future of our children is at risk of being jeopardised by so-called 'wobbs and dobbs', merely as Sunni Scholars (and all those 'in knowledge') cannot pull their act together. English is the spoken and understood language of the majority of Youth today! Unless Sunni peers act quickly, i truly dread to think what will happen to OUR children...... One only has to witness the sheer agitation, frustration and angst on young people's faces when Imams/Mullahs etc deliver speeches in attempted English or Punjabi/Urdu/etc.....frowns are abundant! Recently, I asked a 13 yr boy leaving 'Sabaq' (Quran Dars) class why he was so frustrated and unhappy during classes. His reply: 'It's boring reading Quran, it's so boring cos I'm reading the same thing again and again. It's only a book....I don't understand what I'm reading so why do I have to bother. It's so boring!' And then we complain that our kids are totally dis-associated with the Deen???? Ya Allah! Hear our pleas...............
Subhanallah. That is very true. I recommend the following speech by sheikh pirzada sahib: http://mihpirzada.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=84&Itemid=48 Watch the first 10 mins in which sheikh pirzada sahib talks about the opposition he received from ppl when he started teaching dars-e-nizami in english. In fact the whole talk is mindblowing and well worth listening to! It reminds me of the opposition that his sheikh, hazrat zia-ul-ummat pir muhammad karam shah (ra) received when they started teaching english at bhera shareef back in the 60's and 70's. It's great to see the vision that these great sheikhs have.. if only others learnt from these great visionaries!
Importing scholars is not the problem. Importing relatives who aren't qualified as scholars who then pretend to be learned is. If we had decent scholars in all our Mosques and education centres, sunni children would have learnt arabic and urdu and would have been able to read books written by our esteemed scholars - of course English is important but learning 2 additional languages would have helped them greatly and studies have shown that children who are bi-lingual i.e have properly learnt two languages also perform better in schools than those who know only one. instead we've had so called scholars who shout in punjabi and their teaching skills are such that every child is desperate to leave madressa. We have a vicious circle where our children don't want to become scholars and we then have to look abroad at imports!
Now that's a good proposal. How true. I wish those who 'claim representation of the ahl as-Sunna' would objectively read this thread. The points raised are pertinent and extremely important for our growth as a sunni community.
Sidi abdalqadir that is one of the best posts on this forum. Agree 100%. sadly the imported mullahs will put up fierce resistance though as that is their livelihood! Importing mullahs who are close relatives is still one way ppl are getting round the tighter immigration controls. Wobbs and dobbs are thriving since they made the change to English ages ago whereas we r still not sure. The saddest thing is that if you go into any islamic bookstore 90% of the stock in english is by wobblers and dobbies. We have hardly anything. The only Sunni works to be found tend to be either those translations of Sufi works by orientals or the work by mawlana shaykh kabbani and converts like shaykh Hamza. Most of the desi mullahs just eat halvah and roAst chicken and Fe
re. no. 7: I think Muslims living abroad should invest in giving English lessons to maulanas and naat khwans and others and we need to work on giving dawah, tabligh, duroos 100% in English at least thrice a month. Its nice to have a mehfil of naats every Sunday and meet up with the local desi families and all, but we need to think strategically and hold all out English speaking events- full stop. This will also help us in forging alliances with Sunnis of other communities too like Turks, Bosnians, Arabs, Africans, Malaysians, Indonesians, etc. Our seniors need to wake up and smell the coffee. We are no longer Indians-Pakistanis in many aspects of culture, even if we enjoy the language and food. We are Muslim Brits/Yanks/Aussies/Canucks etc of an ethnicity. The next generation, the children of those currently in their 20's and 30's, will be even further DE-desi-ized. The sooner we realize it, along with the other communities, and form ONE homogeneous Sunni mega-community, the better it will be for the ummah. Not saying we dissolve ethnic organizations. Just saying we focus on strategic alliances within communities, not just at the imam/managing committee level, but at a grassroots level for common people too- and English/local language is the binding glue for it. Of course such a move might face many hurdles by those with personal aspirations of their own, especially the no-engliss maulvis (from all communities) would feel very threatened. It is highly ironic that in the past, we had far sighted scholars like Abdul Aleem Siddiqi rahimahullah who saw the value of conveying the deen in the local language of the area but now with even more immigration and even more resources at our disposal, we are moving backwards. The reason for the wahabis multiplying so efficiently is precisely this. One language which happens to be the local language, and one multi-ethnic audience. They just don't incorporate ethnic divisions when it comes to propagation of wahabi-ism. We, our elders rather, on the other hand, are hell bent on over-desi-izing stuff more than it actually is. The funnier thing is their version of desi-ness is from the days that THEY moved to [insert country] in the 60's 70's etc. I'm not saying we deny our ethnic heritage. I'm just saying we don't consider ourselves someone we're not, regardless whether its a full on desi OR a gora firangi. Its about time we (ie the 2nd gen desis born n bred elsewhere) assessed our lifestyle and culture and come to a few objective conclusions as to what exactly we are and what our cultural values are and work with them, both in deeni and dunyawi matters rather than have confused and misplaced values. And the imams and maulanas that we import to UK/US/Australia/Canada/Europe etc. should be given orientation in not just the local language but also general lifestyle and culture in the land and our own semi-desi subculture. It is highly important to note, that the newer de-desi-ized generation will pay less heed to the words of these people as opposed to their parents, and the sole reason for this will be that they cannot connect with their audience at their level. It is already happening now, it will only get worse, if we don't change things. Our speakers are on one platform, and we are on a different plane, literally AND figuratively. It really is not cute when an imam is delivering a talk in English and he's addressing a mixed auience saying "braaders please send durood on huzoor 'alaihis salam" or "please read durood shareef" although may Allah reward him for his intentions and love of the Prophet, sal Allahu 'alaihi wa 'ala aalihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Bottom line: they need to connect with the audience more AND teach matters of deen, like aH pointed out. Naats are awesome and it may be humorous to trash a wahabi in the right context, but people don't need to be hosed down with only that, time and again, in every single gathering! Aqaid, basic fiqh, tafaseer, ahadith, siyar would do us all good.
yes, nj, duroos are the way forward. --- aH, about ni'matul kubra: i will recheck but i am sure mawlana sharaf qadri wrote that the book is by him but when we read the commentaries to the work, these bogus attributions are nowhere to be found.
i agree aqdas. something i really wish would happen --i wish pir sayyid irfan shah sahib would do it --is that one of our alims should teach the whole sira of the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم from birth to momentary death in chronological order and then continue with the siras of the khulafa e rashideen and the aimmah e ahle bayt and then the lives of prominent awliya and scholars. a model would be the series of lectures on the sira of the Habib :as: by shaykh hamza yusuf-- but in urdu it would be even more thrilling and so beneficial rather than the usual pomposity we get from 95% of the speakers. another idea i like is that floated by sidi AH: since most of us don't know classical arabic why not read a few pages from say the ihya ul uloom every lecture and explain it to us so that by the end we'd've gone through it all? or pick any other great sunni book.
17. after the recent controversy regarding tariqah muhammadiyah, it is very important that only strict sunnis speak at our gatherings. whoever has a soft spot in the heart for any innovator - wahabi, deobandi, shia - must not be invited to, and worse still, speak to a sunni audience.
I don't wish to be controversial particularly in the light of the recent reconciliation that is dominating Sunni forums. However, many of thr don'ts are all too evident on Noor TV. At times i cringe when i hear the Muftis answer queries from the public. I am merely a layman but i thank Allah for giving us the likes Shaykh Gibreel and the other non sub-con scholars as i've always found our approach off putting. Doubtless to say there some real gems from the sub-con like Syed Irfan Shah who is well versed in refuting the bad aqeeda with sound daleel as opposed to the usual emotional firebrand speeches packed with all sorts of poetry. I'm not as eloquent as the others on this forum but if u ever attend a jalsa you'll get my drift. w slm
at least he didn't say it's my ibn hajar hayti like one "mawlana" did on tv recently. but, yours is probably worse! --- i would like to commend the suffah foundation for publishing a collection of mawlana 'abdul hakeem sharf qadri's essays entitled khuda ko yaad kar pyaare. every imam/speaker should read this book. it has been published with the help of mawlana 'umar hayat qadri. inshaAllah, i will put up a brief overview later.
