Articles

"Prayer is the spiritual ascension of the believer", and understanding this allows us to further appreciate how salat is a form of "yoga" in the most profound and highest sense of the term—aligned as it is to our inner, spiritual ascension to the Divine Presence.

Today, there is this move to validate our pop-culture by mixing it with religion. In the process, we are threatening something critical to healthy living—the sacred.

Mayor Mohamed Khairullah’s faith in God and the principles with which he was raised continue to drive him to risk his life and political career to remain a source of support to the Syrian people yearning for the basic rights enjoyed in the United States. The mayor graciously shared with Al-Madina a few stories of his trips to Syria and his reflections on the ongoing crisis in that region.

"When I send prayers upon you, my day gets better. Insha’Allah, we’ll be together forever!"

As a community, we need to stop patting people on the back and encouraging them to find themselves by sharing mistakes from their past, disguised as a gift of warning to the world. We need to remind ourselves of the importance of hayaa’ and take back our own narratives in our own tongue. Ignoring taboo topics won’t make them go away and by no means will they disappear if we don’t talk about them. But there is a fine line between using crude language that encourages a bragging of sorts and using modest language that explains and warns in an age-appropriate way.

The media reports and Muslim response to the kidnapping crisis in Nigeria shed light on our myopic world-view and neglect of sectors of the ummah, and how it permeates even our supplications.

Commencement of the spiritual season for every believer, starting with Rajab and ending with the month of Ramadan, has begun. The three months of Rajab, Sha'ban and Ramadan are unmatched in their importance.

Shaykh Mokhtar Maghraoui

Shaykh Mokhtar Maghraoui on where to find spiritual retreat amidst the chaos of our busy daily lives. Excerpt from "Inner Dimensions of the Qur'an", a series where he examines several selections from the Qur'an, reflecting on how they play a crucial role in our understanding of the process of self-purification.

I have three young boys whom I love dearly —all loud, all convinced they are the center of the universe, and all wanting to run around naked if I let them. I never really thought much about modesty as it related to raising children until I had them, and I have come to realize how tightly interwoven it is with other virtues like honesty and kindness that we place in such high regard. I doubt anyone would argue that modesty is a fundamental aspect of being Muslim. Yet, surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) our focus is almost always on the outward manifestation of modesty, especially as it applies to women. Somehow, we've taken something beautiful, deep and multi-dimensional and made it flat and superficial. Modesty is (or should be) gender neutral and any talk of modesty, therefore, must begin with the heart, not the hemline. At the heart’s core lie virtues of kindness, respect and love for our fellow man.

The closing panel session from the Pearls of the Qur'an Conference. A must watch for Muslims across America.

They light up the darkness like the radiant light of stars from distant galaxies who have come to send salutations upon the full, bright, luminescent moon. Their faces, some like artwork by Monet, others like landscapes by Ansel Adams, tell the stories of their lives, carrying onlookers with them down the rivers of their experiences in their furrowed brows or the freshness of the spring like waters of their youthfulness that know no fear and unlimited potentialities, the hopes in their bright eyes or the regrets in the tears that fall from their visual orbs like a deluge after a drought that had left their souls cracked and vapid like old and moldy bread that has been left out too long.