Man, Woman and the Sphere of our Political Future

Rais Abu Bakr Rieger

Saturday, 29th June 2019

First of all I want to thank Amir Umar del Pozo for the organization of this wonderful gathering and also Khadija Martinez for her efforts and all the energy she has put into organizing the women’s conference. Also I want to thank Ibtisaam for a brilliant, very balanced summarization of the women’s conference. There was a very serious side to it, but there was also the joy of the gathering shining through. I received it as very powerful and ambitious, but never ideological. In fact one expression came into my heart, which is: sober drunkenness.

When I am asked to give a talk the title has usually very significant words; like in this case: Men and women. It is a habit of mine, to go immediately to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1, just to look where something appears which has to do with men and women. In fact the first quote I found is from “Poetry and Truth”. It is a quite charming quote, Goethe says: “Men age, women change”.

Continue reading “Man, Woman and the Sphere of our Political Future”

Conclusions of the women’s conference

Great Mosque of Granada anniversary, June 29th 2019

delivered by

Ibtisaam Ahmed

I would like to thank you for allowing me the opportunity to talk at the anniversary of the Great Mosque of Granada on a theme that is of vital importance and interest. The women have had quite a week! Today, we invite the men to share in some of our reflections and conclusions that took place at the very first Women’s Encounters Conference.

Let me begin by providing some context. Last year at the Mawsim of Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi in Cape Town, a group of women preparing breakfast in a house overlooking the sea were inspired to come together to make a space for a gathering of women from all of our various communities. Hajja Jadiya Martinez took on this task and gained the support of Rais Abu Baker Rieger, who stressed the importance of conveying and sharing the conclusions with the men. An organizing team consisting of Hajja Zulaikha Lund, Hajja Atika Jiminez, Tahira Narbona and Aisha Hernandez was created in order to assist Hajja Jadiya in the realisation of this conference which has taken months of careful preparation. We can only thank them all and ask Allah to bless them for putting together this conference.

Continue reading “Conclusions of the women’s conference”

The Mosque in Modern Society; it’s Importance for Muslims and Da’wa

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Below is a link to Mega for hafidh Luqman Nieto’s talk at the Granada Mosque Anniversary entitled, ‘The Mosque in Modern Society; it’s Importance for Muslims and Da’wa’. Delivered on Sunday 8th July 2018.

Click on link below to listen to the talk

https://mega.nz/#!dj5xVS7S!_QBQsVNR4b7KOb2eIujXTKVVlAee5Vqmi6J-r1jQXeg

 

The Muslim and the Mosque

The Muslim and the Mosque
15th Anniversary of the Granada Mosque Celebration
Conference Talk
Saturday, 7th July 2018

The Muslim and the mosque. A man and a building. A man who submits to his Creator and a building where he submits. The primary act of the Muslim, and therefore the human being, is to prostrate to his Lord. It is the time and position when man is closest to the Merciful and his own reality. Among men there are those who accept this and those who reject it. Both reside in the same world, but in a very different manner. The Muslim has a book and an example and strives to live his life according to both, which are in fact one. The kafir, the one who puts a layer between himself and the truth, thinks he knows better, or rather does not want to follow the available guidance, preferring his own opinion. Naturally, there is a bit of both in each, but generally submission or rebellion predominates one or the other. Allah tests each with the other; the Muslim’s Iman and the kafir’s rejection. Continue reading “The Muslim and the Mosque”

Asabiyya

Bedouin cover

Pages 275-6

“At a certain stage the bedouin in their power of growth and expansion, and by a genetic vitalisation denied the passive urban community, begin to identify themselves as a new civic force. A natural need becomes wedded to a higher evaluation, an evaluation of themselves. There emerges among them the most powerful force that social man can experience. It is kinship, but not of blood. It transcends the tribal and the familial. This unification of the group takes them to the Second Stage. Stage Two is defined by Ibn Khaldun with the term ‘Asabiyya’. Asabiyya, normally ‘kinship’, is here used to mark as distinctive the bond, the life and death unifying bond of a brotherhood without blood ties. In the excellent Pléiade edition of ‘The Muqaddima’ its editor and translator calls it ‘esprit de corps’, but it is much more than that, for it has in it also a moral evaluation as in the term ‘Futuwwa’, chivalry or nobility of character. Asabiyya unites men to find the power to act and transform and command. If its motor power is high, its brotherhood is raised higher. If the binding factor (religio – to bind together) is there, that is Divine religion, it is, that being its highest possibility, assured a triumph.”