This practice is actually a tradition of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, who married Ayesha, may Allah be pleased with her, and delayed consummation until she was older.

After over 18 months of being married by nikaḥ kitāba, today marks the day my wife and I will be having our “ruksathi” wedding party after which will begin to live our lives together forever, inshaAllah. After a wonderful year and a half of a beautiful relationship Allah blessed us with, we came up with what we feel is an essential survival guide for couples undergoing the same journey we just completed. If you are married by nikāḥ kitāba or will be in the future, then this list is for you.

1. Know your intention

Unfortunately, having the correct intention is often overlooked as the typically cliché and skip-over introduction point to anything. However, here as much as always, you will find it to be critically important. You, your spouse, and your families have agreed to join together in marriage and delay living together until later. In addition to being a tradition of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, it may also serve as a means of worshipping Allah. You could have decided to practice other less sound relationship methods, but instead chose to perform nikāḥ right away. Always remember this goal of pleasing Allah, as remembering Him in times of good as well as bad will make it much easier to reach the light at the end of the tunnel.

2. Don’t play games

With long distance relationships, communication via the phone or internet may become your relationship’s only lifeline. With such limitation, you’re going to run into some roadblocks in getting important cues and messages through to your significant other. Since you have no avenue to use physical gestures to express your feelings, don’t play guessing games with your spouse. If you’re upset, just say it! Both of you don’t want things to drag and the sooner you speak up, the sooner you’ll find yourselves laughing together again.

3. Understand that your spouse has another life

You may find yourself at times frustrated that your spouse is busy and can’t speak on the phone, or they don’t pick up the phone whenever you find the chance to call. Don’t stress it. This is simply a natural result of having a long-distance relationship. Whether the distance is across the globe or across the street, understand if the other is busy or cannot visit. Always believe they wish they could talk to you or see you more, and never accuse them of the opposite. There may be things on the other end you just cannot see to understand why they are so busy (i.e. actual fatigue, stress with school or career, family responsibilities, etc). Understanding that your spouse can be busy will help during times when communication and visits are hard to get going.

4. Increase your relationship with your in-laws

Use your time wisely to get to know not only one another but each others family while you’re at it. Of course it may be difficult to remember your in-laws when all you can think about is the wonderful new person in your life, but don’t forget the people that helped culture them in the first place. Make time to speak to in-laws on the phone, and remind your spouse to do likewise. When you visit one another don’t only try to run off alone. Instead, spend time with your parents and siblings-in-law and build a relationship while everything is still sort of “casual”. Making way for in-laws may require more effort than is needed for one’s spouse, but it will only strengthen the bond between you two for the long-run.

5. Make effort to schedule physical meetings

Not every couple in nikaḥ kitāba can easily visit one another, but if the means are there for you, take them. Physical interaction with one’s spouse is very important, and must be a part of your relationship if the possibility exists. Sure you’re limited to not being able to live with one another, but based on your agreed conditions in your marriage, make ways with your family and schedule to visit your spouse as much as you can. Being able to see one another can be one of the best ways to get through the time period which you have to endure before you eventually get to see each other every single day.

6. Strengthen your Iman with your spouse

You are undoubtedly going to find ways to visit one another, and even if you don’t you will find yourself talking to each other every day. Remember that you’re not just some random couple “dating” or in a relationship, you’re married and you’re Muslim. Therefore it’s important to build your Islamic relationship with one another. Find local events, seminars, classes, halaqahs, or conferences and make plans to go attend them together. Buy each other Islamic audio CDs and books to read and discuss. Or, just take it back to the basics: maintain a consistent daily reciting of Qur’ān and reading of the meaning to one another over the phone. Do something, anything; but just make you’re sure doing it and doing it consistently. You can have the best emotional, mental, physical and family relationship ever, but without a solid spiritual foundation, everything else will collapse.

7. Be yourself

Marriage can be a bit scary in the fear of wondering what the other person
will think about your habits, tendencies, and weaknesses. However, one of its beautiful aspects comes when you are able to be yourself in front of your spouse just the way you are, and your understanding and acceptance of one another further strengthens your love. Don’t try to hide behind formalities of what you think a spouse should or shouldn’t do. This is the time to be who you are and let your spouse get to know the real you without the added pressure of living together. If your spouse becomes familiar with your actual self before your wedding party, the transition should be a lot easier when that cherised time eventually comes, bi’ithniAllah.

We hope you’ve benefited from this list for your current or future marriage. This advice is in no way exhaustive, and there are many other tips for couples in nikāḥ kitāba, so if you have anything else, please feel free to share it here.

We ask Allah ‘azza wa jal to bless all couples everywhere and give us all the ability to preserve our communities’ relationships into the future, and that He makes marriage easy for those whom it is difficult and serve as a means to Jannah and His pleasure.

On one of the evenings of the course, the brothers all met up at a local volunteer’s house to chill with Shaykh Riad where he gave this short 10 minute talk on tips for the dai’yah (caller to Islam). The talk is recorded for your watching pleasure here.

How about you? Got any tips for those involved in Da’wah? Any awesome techniques or wonder stories that you’ve experienced or heard? Know something we should be careful of?

I found a story written from www.themuslimhousewife.com about this issue with a personal story unlike any I had ever heard before. It also includes a cameo by Shaykh Yasir Qadhi, and is posted in full here, followed by my thoughts. (more…)

At one point in my childhood, I started rethinking the practice altogether. I thought that while I’m allowed to shorten my prayer, why not just pray them in full, especially since I have the time and energy as a nine-year old on summer break. After all, logically speaking, more is always better, right?

Plus since we were living in a world of air conditioning and refrigeration, there was no real difficulty in traveling, and thus, no need to shorten my Salah. So for a few days, I began to pray my Salah in full, even as a traveler.

Shortly thereafter, I learned I was completely wrong. Not only was my logic of “more is always better” incorrect, I actually would have been rewarded more for doing less. How was that?

One of the beautiful aspects of this religion is in following the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) as a complete guide in life. Whatever he commanded, we comply with, and whatever he practiced, we try to emulate.

As a result, if the Prophet (SAW) refrained from doing something, such as praying less prayer while traveling, Muslims subsequently get reward from also refraining from that act. More isn’t necessarily always better; following the actions of the Prophet (SAW) is.

Musa ibn Salamah al-Hadhali said: “I asked Ibn ‘Abbaas, ‘How should I pray if I am in Makkah and I do not pray with the imam?’ He said, ‘Two rak’ahs, and this is the way of Abu’l-Qaasim (SAW).” [Sahih Muslim]

Many people, like me in the traveling story, tend to believe that more is always better. In obeying Allah (SWT) and His Messenger (SAW), this isn’t always the case. Acts of worship in Islam aren’t so primitively ritualistic. Rather, there is a science behind them that falls back on the tradition of the Prophet (SAW), regardless of whether it seems like we’re doing more or less.

It’s important to realize this and teach it to ourselves and our children. This not only gives us the proper understanding of our religion, it prevents us from doing silly things like praying the prayers in full while traveling out of town.

May Allah ‘azza wa jal give us the proper understanding of His religion and guide us to actions that reward us, be they more or less.

         From: Mofees
         Bomb threat, my class
         was just evacuated. Tell
         ur teacher
         6:48pm 4/21/08

At around 6:40pm, DePaul University began to evacuate its two downtown Chicago Loop campus buildings after receiving a phone call of a bomb threat. The building I was in was not amongst those officially evacuated, but people like myself began receiving text messages from friends with classes in the evacuated buildings about the bomb threat. All the while, my class was in the middle of presentations and there I was unsure of what to do.

Although our building wasn’t officially evacuating, I still thought that we should do so, just in case of any potential danger. I showed the text to the student next to me so as to ask him what to do. The student, scared out of his mind, (more…)

I noticed a No Parking sign that caught my eye, different from all the hundreds in the Loop. Something was clearly noticeable about it; a bright red sticker attached to its plain black painted pole. The sticker did its job of asking to be seen and drew me in for closer inspection.

(more…)

My wife convinced me to apply to be a counselor, and alhumdulillah I am grateful for being accepted and having the opportunity to go. I learned a number of lessons from counseling at the conference, and feel they apply just as much to anyone else involved in Da’wah.

[#5 - Be Flexible and Accommodating in Da’wah]

Ibn al-Qayyim gave some really slick life advice. “Take from every garden the best flower.”

Coming from another community, there were small tidbits about the conference and its methodology which raised some brows for us brothers who came from Chicago. Things in the Chi are run a certain way, and it was a change of pace to view them being run another way by another organiztion. But for every small nitpicky issue we found in the conference, there were dozens more that were full of blessings, w’alhumdulillah.

No organization or event is going to go 100% the way you want it. While events and organizations you encounter and work with aren’t what you feel to be perfect, ignore the bad and run with the good. It can go a long way.

[#4 - Hijab is the flag of the Muslimah in the West]

Two events hit this home for me.

After one night of the conference, a brave young girl got up on the mic to share a few words the next morning. Coming all the way from Kentucky, the sister was a bit shy but still managed to say what she wanted to say through all the giggles of her spotlight moment.

She told everyone how much she loved the conference, how she didn’t want to come and felt she wouldn’t enjoy it or fit in. But standing tall and brave up on the mic, holding back tears, she announced to the entire room that from that day forward she was going to begin wearing Hijab, just because of the conference.

Audio clip from MMYC 2009 trailer:

The room erupted with clapping, cheering, and takbeerat from 300+ kids and counselors. Instantly, the brave young now-Muhajibah became the star of the conference.

I approached one of my old friends from Michigan who helped organized the conference to pat him on the back on a job well done in organizing the event, and asked Allah to reward and accept it from them, only to find him holding back tears from the powerful Eman launching scene that just took place. I honestly cannot recall a moment like that in 22 years of being a Muslim youth in the West.

After that moment, every speaker mentioned her accomplishment in their speeches, and every sister in the audience struggling with Hijab now had a shining role model to look up to and think, “I can do it, too.”

Later that weekend, in a workshop Q&A session, another young girl asked a question about an older friend of hers who has been having trouble getting pregnant with her husband for 6 years, and how that relates back to Du’as being accepted or not.

In the question, the young sister mentioned, “and she’s a good person, too; she’s Muhajibah.”

Both of these events really touched me and opened my eyes about Hjiab. These girls truly knew the importance of Hijab, way better than I could ever imagine (especially since I’m a male growing up in a house with no sisters).

I really sympathize with all Muslim sisters struggling with wearing Hjiab. I used to think it was so easy, that you just slap on a headscarf and walk away. It’s not. The whole world around us is saying Hijab is ugly, whether it’s non-Muslim friends or Desi culture. It’s not as easy as I had imagined it to be, and for the first time I can say that I finally understand, if even just a little bit.

I ask Allah (SWT) to make it easy for all Muslim sisters struggling to start wearing Hijab, and to continue with Hijab for the rest of their lives.

[#3 - The Power of a Youth Camp/Retreat]

When the Prophet (SAW) grew up in Mecca, he would escape to the Cave of Hira to get away from society for a moment and reflect on life. After Prophethood, this practice of temporarily leaving life continued every Ramadan when the Prophet (SAW) made I’tikaf in the masjid year after year.

My wife, a Michigan native, has been attending the conference as a kid since it began in 2001 and continues today serving as a counselor. She wrote on her blog about the conference.

“I decided to come back again as a counselor this year at the conference, and it’s safe to say, that MMYC magic is still alive and well. I don’t know what it is about the conference that just *works*. Maybe it’s the speakers. Maybe it’s the hype of no parents + spring break + hotels. Maybe it’s the yearning to seek knowledge. Or maye it’s that all throughout the conference I was surrounded by a new batch of Muslim youth, soaking in the MMYC experience, making friendships, and being revitalized.”

I have attended just a few camps and retreats in my life, but every single time they change your life in ways you can’t while living life “normally” with school, work, and home. This is especially so for youth camps and retreats.

A lot of the kids attend public schools, and are unable to spend time with large groups of Muslims their age. When they come and find hundreds of others just like them who share the same experiences and struggles, it goes a long way in solidifying their Muslim identity.

It’s important to attend a conference, camp, or retreat, at least ONCE every year. We need more camps and retreats for the youth, more ways for us elder youth to get active, and we need to build our events better every single year.

[#2 - Grassroots Da’wah is Important Critical in the West]

A’isha (RA) said that if the verses of Quran prohibiting alcohol were to be revealed first, none of the Muslims would have stopped drinking alcohol. The reason the Muslims of Medina were so easily able to mend their entire lives for Islam was because the Quran first solidified the hearts of the Muslims on Allah SWT and the reality that there is a Day of Judgment, Hellfire, and Paradise.

We all want to mold our youth to make the best leaders in the world, but where do we start with them? In the age of what I call “The Hollister Generation,” the generation of text messaging, Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube, I found that nothing worked better than connecting hearts with a few key basics: Allah (SWT) and His Mercy, Paradise and Hellfire, and loving Islam and being Muslim.

Counselors would try and talk to kids about what they reflected on the lectures, or what they thought about some issues here and there, and the conversation would be okay. But when we sat down and talked about repentance, the Day of Judgment, how to get into Jannah, who Allah (SWT) is, how Merciful he really is, etc. their hearts were aching for some baking. You should have seen how these young brothers were hanging on the edge of the story of Barseesa, or about the Hadith of the man who killed 100 people who still made it to Jannah because of repentance. It was awesome!

Also grassroots Da’wah is an activity every Islamic worker in North America should be involved in for two reasons, especially for those seeking higher knowledge.

Firstly, it takes you back to the basics of Da’wah and use your knowledge in interacting with Muslims who are in need of the fundamentals. The Prophet (SAW) asked Allah (SWT) to increase in his ‘ilm, but that’s not all he was involved in like some of us. He (SAW) was still very active in teaching Islam to the Bedouins and laypeople.

Click for larger view

Many of us love to sharpen our swords of knowledge, but without experience on the field, how can we expect to wield them efficiently and effectively? Your knowledge is useless if you can’t convince kids that there’s a Hellfire and they can to repent to Allah to avoid it, and you can’t convince them too well without the knowledge in the first place. Getting involved in these types of efforts helps.

Secondly, working with organization specializing on grassroots Da’wah can go really far in dealing with the sectarian problem in our communities. A lot of complaints are made that the knowledge seeking Muslims, college aged and above, are focusing on certain issues, Madhabs, Manhaj, Aqeedah, and Fiqh, while the youth are getting owned by Shaitan. One of the best ways to find that “balance” is to get involved with grassroots Da’wah. Not only does it help us bring focus back to certain priorities, it helps build foundations of brotherhood for those of us with differences.

At MMYC 2008, the organizers appreciated the coming together of brothers and sisters from all sorts of different backgrounds and styles in the interest of the kids and their development. I have to admit, it was wonderful to have that playing field with no labels, no preassumed agendas, nothing. Just old school Da’wah and getting one another to fear and love Allah and His Deen.

[#1 - Your Students are your Counselors]

On the last day, as we were leaving the conference, I told my guys that they were the best counselors I ever had. Each of them looked at me confused, but I explained that we all learn from one another, and that they taught me more than I had ever learned before. The main point of the conference for us counselors was to take charge of a group of kids and guide them through the weekend in helping them increase their Eman. Yet, in taking on the responsibility of counseling four young and ambitious brothers, I found that more than anything, they were shaping me up!

Just think about it. You’re in charge of what they can and can’t do. You’re the one who has to wake them up for Fajr. You’re the one who has the responsibility of striking engaging Islamic conversation in a hotel room with a 40″ HDTV with ESPN and movie channels. In the end, you learn a lot more about yourself than you thought you knew before.

I understand now why Imam Malik’s mother wanted him to learn the adab and manners of his Shaykh before anything else. She knew that if he was a person of Eman, his manners would be the most amiable thing about him. This is what Islamic workers need to be, examples of people with Eman and high moral character. You can explain to them a mountain of stories and Hadith, but nothing speaks louder to your kids than the way you carry yourself.

My advice to everyone is to run towards these kinds of events, and stay with them for the rest of your lives. If you’re young, go attend them, ever year/month/weekend. If you’re getting older, go volunteer and run them. And if you’re passed all of that, then go and to speak at, guide, and mold them.

I ask Allah (SWT) to continue to allow us to participate in these spectacular events and guide us to what’s best. I definitely wanna hit up the conference next year, inshaAllah, so if you’re down to come with, holler.

I remember while having ice cream with Shaykh Yasir in Chicago, he mentioned that the majority of the Ummah, particularly here in the West, are under the age of five. This boom of Muslim children, among many factors, is probably what helped bring about this statistic.

I feel the question now is with such a large population, what can we account for ourselves as an Ummah and our responsibility as inheriters of Allah’s religion? How much of an impact will such a large population of Muslims have in the world? Will we use it to further better humanity with Islam, or are we just more of a percentage of foam on the sea?

May Allah (SWT) strengthen us. The following is the article from AP.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Muslims more numerous than Catholics
By ALESSANDRA RIZZO, Associated Press Writer
Sun Mar 30, 2:48 PM ET

Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world’s largest religion, the Vatican newspaper said Sunday.

“For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us,” Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano. Formenti compiles the Vatican’s yearbook.

He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world population — a stable percentage — while Muslims were at 19.2 percent. (more…)

[Download: Visit here to download]

The khutbah is entitled “Uncomparable Love.” Love? Is it a marriage talk? Gender interactions? We’ll leave it up to you to figure out just which love Shaykh Yasir is talking about by listening and/or downloading the khutbah yourself. Enjoy