AH Year | CE Year | Scholar |
---|---|---|
21 | 642 | Hasan Al-Basri – One of the most celebrated of the Tab'iun whose name is often encountered in commentaries of the Quran. |
80 | 702 | Abu Hanifa – Famous for his school of jurisprudence. |
85 | 704 | Ibn Ishaq – Famous for his biography of the Prophet ﷺ. |
93 | 711 | Malik ibn Anas – Famous for his school of jurisprudence. |
150 | 767 | Al-Shaafi'i – Famous for his school of jurisprudence. |
164 | 780 | Ahmad Ibn Hanbal – Famous for his school of jurisprudence. |
194 | 810 | Muhammad Al-Bukhari – Famous for his Hadith collection. |
204 | 819 | Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj – Famous for his Hadith collection. |
214 | 829 | Al-Nasa'i – Famous for his Hadith collection. |
240 | 854 | Ibn Abi Hatim |
270 | 883 | Ibn Hibban |
321 | 933 | Al-Haakim |
384 | 994 | Al-Bayhaqi |
392 | 1002 | Al-Khateeb Al-Baghdadi |
450 | 1058 | Al-Ghazali – Famous for his works entitled The Incoherence of the Philosophers and The Revival of the Religious Sciences. |
631 | 1233 | Al-Nawawi – Famous for his collection of 40 Hadith and his work entitled The Meadows of the Righteous. |
661 | 1263 | Ibn Taymiyyah |
691 | 1292 | Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya |
701 | 1300 | Ibn Kathir – Famous for his commentary on the Quran. |
Adil on Faith
Thoughts on faith and religion.
Friday 17 November 2023
Timeline of early Muslim scholars
Friday 24 February 2023
Top ten tips for Umrah 🕋
- Carry your hotel name on you. Each person in your group should have their hotel name and address written on them. It's very easy to get separated from your group during Tawaf or Sa'ee. You want the peace of mind that everybody in your group can make their own way back to the hotel should they get separated.
- Keep your footwear on when doing Tawaf and Sa'ee. Unless you're used to walking long distances bare foot on hard surfaces, doing so will cause strain to your feet and legs and hamper your ability to do follow-up Tawafs and/or Umrahs.
- Carry plasters and antiseptic wipes on you during Tawaf and Sa'ee. Individuals pushing wheelchairs are careless and often hit and cut those in front of them. I hope you never have to administer the plasters and wipes that you're carrying but, sadly, it's likely you will.
- Protect yourself against the sun. Pack sunglasses, sun cream and a light coloured scarf or umbrella. Take these items with you on each daytime trip to the Masjid. Remember not to wear the sun cream whilst in the state of Ihram.
- Set off early for prayer. Leave half an hour before the Adhan at least to get a place inside the Masjid or the extension.
- Use the first floor for Nafl Tawafs. The ground floor is currently exclusive for those doing Umrah. The roof is currently off limits for Tawaf due to construction works.
- Use the Mosque extension for a more tranquil prayer. There is always plenty of space inside and it is nicely carpeted. The ground and first floors of the main Mosque are currently exclusive for Umrah and Tawaf. As a result, they are quite disruptive to pray in.
- Ask the cleaners for help and advice. Avoid asking the Saudi guards for help and advice. Asking the Saudi guards for advice is like asking a Magic 8 Ball for advice.
- Avoid getting mobile data if you can. Entering the Masjid without internet is a great way to maximise your time inside and to have a detox from all the distractions online and outside.
- Install the Maps.ME app on your mobile device. Download the offline map for Saudi Arabia in the app to get a better visual layout of the Masjid and the surrounding area than what is available with Google Maps.
Sunday 6 November 2022
Book Review: Inside the Brotherhood, by Hazem Kandil
This is proving to be a difficult read. I've made it to the end of the first chapter and I'm really going to have to push myself to continue on with it.
The book has thus far been a one-way critique of the Muslim Brotherhood based on interviews with anonymous nobodies. It is devoid of objectivity and balance, and full of sarcasm and straw man arguments.
If you're looking for unchallenged arguments to confirm negative opinions that you already hold about the Muslim Brotherhood, this book is for you. For me though, there's just too much political spin here. Everything the Brotherhood stands for and does is shed in a negative light and it's hard to take a book seriously that presents a caricature of its subject material.
Thursday 30 December 2021
Resources for learning and practicing Arabic
In this post, I have put together Book and Video resources for anybody who wants to study Arabic at their own pace as opposed to joining a class. If you prefer to study at the pace of a class, then see this post instead.
The resources below are ordered alphabetically and not in an order of recommendation.
Books
- Arabic Reader (Published by Lund Humphries) – This is a fantastic resource to practice your reading once you know the basic rules of grammar. It provides comprehensive vocabulary and footnotes so you don't have to keep digging into the dictionary. However, note that it is advanced so not a good book to start with.
- Mastering Arabic (Published by Palgrave Macmillan) – There are four books in the series: 'Mastering Arabic Script', 'Mastering Arabic', 'Mastering Arabic 2' and 'Mastering Arabic Grammar'. This is a good series to have in your library but I wouldn't say it is sufficient to learn Arabic. It is a little sparse in detail and in repeating concepts so you'll need other resources to hand in order to solidify the concepts that you learn in these books.
Videos
Arabic Language Academy (YouTube Playlists)
- Arabic Dialogues (49 videos: each video is around 10 minutes)
- Arabic Stories and Reading Text (14 videos; each video is around 5 minutes)
- Arabic Vocabulary (15 videos; each video is around 8 minutes)
Bayyinah TV
- Dream Intensive 1 (13 videos; each video is around 2 hours)
- Dream Intensive 2 (11 videos; each video is around 2-and-a-half hours)
- Dream Intensive 3 (15 videos; each video is around 1-and-a-half hours)
- Dream Intensive 4 (19 videos; each video is around 1-and-a-half hours)
FC LangMedia (YouTube Playlists)
- First-Year Arabic Grammar Videos (45 videos; each video is around 7 minutes)
- Second-Year Arabic Grammar Videos (37 videos; each video is around 9 minutes)
- Third-Year Arabic Grammar Videos (32 videos; each video is around 9 minutes)
Hidaya Center (YouTube channel)
- Al-Arabiyya Bayna Yadayk – Book 1 (98 videos; each video is around 6 minutes)
- Al-Arabiyya Bayna Yadayk – Book 2 (57 videos; each video is around 6 minutes)
Monday 11 January 2021
Arabic grammar terms
- Ajwaf (أَجْوَف) – a root verb which has an alif, waw or yaa as its second letter, e.g. قَالَ.
- Lafeef Mafrooq (لَفِيف مَفْرُوق) – a root verb which has an alif, waw or yaa as its first and third letter, e.g. وَلَى.
- Lafeef Maqroon (لَفِيف مَقْرُون) – a root verb which has an alif, waw or yaa as its second and third letter, e.g. طَوَى.
- Mithaal (مِثال) – a root verb which has an alif, waw or yaa as its first letter, e.g. وَعَدَ.
- Mudhaa'af (مُضَاعَف) – a root verb which has the same letter in two positions, e.g. سَبَّ.
- Naaqis (ناقِص) – a root verb which has an alif, waw or yaa as its third letter, e.g. رَمَى.
Saturday 29 August 2020
Book Review: Women in the Quran, by Asma Lamrabet
In my opinion, the author really should have stuck to these stories and the lessons of courage, endurance and sacrifice extracted from them. Instead, she continues and closes off by opening up and trying to take on some contentious issues like polygamy and women's inheritance and testimony. The problem is that she raises questions in this domain but doesn't really offer substantiated, convincing answers. It comes across a little ill-conceived and rushed, and it's a classic case of less is more.
My other problem with the book is that the translator seems to have taken to the thesaurus to pick the most difficult word on offer whenever there was a choice. It hurts the readability of the book. Expect words like anachronism, ethnocentric, hegemony and preponderance... and that's just in the first three pages of the introduction. It would be great in future editions of this book if the choice of words was revisited and simpler words chosen wherever possible.
Book Review: The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Mohsin Hamid
You'd imagine from the title that the protagonist is to go on a journey from being not very fundamental to becoming somewhat fundamental. What's implied by the word "fundamentalist" of course is "fundamentalist Muslim". Now here's my gripe. At no point in the story does the protagonist become more observant of the fundamentals of his faith; at no point does he become more observant of God or of the basic things a Muslim is expected to do and to refrain from. He becomes increasingly political and anti-American in his views but nowhere is there mention of him becoming more "Muslim". And there's my gripe. Sadly, what's implied by the title is, firstly, not in tune with what's in the novel and, secondly, it's just cashing in on the mainstream Western narrative that "fundamentalist" is synonymous with "anti-American".
That gripe aside: it's a good, tense, well-told story. Just set your expectations right: expect plenty of references to alcohol, extramarital relations and global politics, and none in the way of religion.