Yaser M. Haddara

When I referred to humor in classic texts in my first review of LM (seems so long ago now) I was thinking specifically of humor literature and humor in literature written by credible (in terms of scholarship and/or piety) authors in pre-modern times. When I started to think more carefully about what a piece on “humor in classic text” would entail, the first thing that came to mind was the stories told about the sahaby al-Nu’ayman. So I realized that writing on this subject I would have to begin by wondering about humor in the community of the sahaba first. But even then I realized that by itself such reflection would be insufficient. We have to ask the question of how things developed from there. I also took note of the fact that this is no theoretical exercise (as I said before I’m not writing a scholarly work here). The fact of the matter is that I posed this question in a very particular context: I felt that some reaction to the humor of LM was unrealistically restrictive. My argument (refined and better articulated in a phone conversation with my brother) is that (a) Muslims, including many of us that found some of the humor in LM uncomfortable, do not hesitate to laugh at similar humor in a non-Muslim context (a rather funny story about this follows below); (b) In Muslim societies, this sort of humor is normal both in art and in daily life; and (c) historically humor has mattered to Muslims, and the particular sort of humor we’re talking about has been ok with Muslims. So whatever it is that I am writing about classic humor is not a neutral, objective, open-ended investigation of how we may form an overall picture of classic humor. What I am actually doing is looking to see whether my assertions above stand up to scrutiny. In other words, integrity and honesty are important in this investigation. Completeness and the discernment of a holistic picture are not. The result is that this is an argument by example: it says something about existence and absolutely nothing about prevalence, preponderance, or norm-setting.

So let me take up my assertions one by one. A strong warning is appropriate at this juncture: some of what follows will push the envelope — it has to if I am going to be honest in chasing down my assertions. In practice, we have multiple responsibilities as Muslims and as decent human beings (there ought to be considerable overlap between these two categories ) with respect to humor of the sort I will bring up here. Those responsibilities will inshaa Allah be the subject of another piece (perhaps the fourth in this series). Until then, please don’t feel too guilty if you laugh, and don’t be too hard on me if you don’t .

Many years ago now I was a graduate student at Stanford. The highlight of my week was the Friday evening gathering of the ISSU (Islamic Society at Stanford University). Back then we were mostly graduate students and all male. Many of us were overweight, most were either foreign students or had lived overseas long enough to have thick accents, and almost all had healthy beards . I’m just trying to paint an accurate image here so you can develop some perspective on this story. Anyhow, the format of the weekly gathering was to begin with a meal (we rotated the cooking in teams) then read Quran and have a presentation (the presentations also rotated). Maghrib was done at the beginning or whenever its time came in. Ishaa was typically deferred to the end of the Jalsa (Ar. for sitting – that’s what we called it back then; today it’s more affectionately known as TGIJ and its audience has changed dramatically – you can check out the ISSU website from my blogroll). On one occasion, the food was particularly filling (some of you know what I mean) and one brother finished eating, got up off the floor, sat on one of the couches in the room, leaned back, stretched his legs in front of him, and stuck his hand in his belt. Simultaneously and spontaneously three other bros looked at him and shouted, “Al Bundy! Al Bundy!” . If you don’t know what I am talking about, try to find out about this really awful TV show called “Married . . . With Children.” The irony of course is not limited to the fact that these three brothers were immediately and simultaneously struck by the image of Al Bundy, but that almost no one in that room, and we were considered a fairly conservative bunch by pretty much everyone, needed to ask “who the heck is Al Bundy?” . (A further irony for me personally was upon coming to McMaster and finding out that my very good buddy here was a co-founder of the Married with children fan club – he blogs on hadithuna too, but at least for this article shall remain unnamed).

So generally, regardless of how “conservative” we are (within limits) we live our lives, we watch, we listen, and we laugh!

OK. Second point. Anyone that’s lived in a Muslim-majority country has seen movies or theater, heard jokes, etc. Like everyone else we have humor that spans a broad spectrum in terms of its audacity or raciness. The astaghfirulllah – sub7anallah – inshaa Allah joke is a well known example that transcends cultural boundaries. (For moral responsibility and social implications you’ll have to wait till part four ). Jokes about marriage, multiple marriage, marriage in paradise, in-laws, etc. all of them center around the comedy in relationships and gender roles. Even the “affectionate” official-sounding titles males tend to bestow on their wives or females claim for themselves (the government, the powers that be, the warden, etc.) are a testament to the perceived richness of marital relations as a source for humor.

So now we’re down to my last statement. Historically, humor has been important to Muslims, and the particular sort of humor we’re talking about has been ok with Muslims. We can further break this statement down into three components. (Depending on your inclinations you may wish to bemoan this “obsession” with lists and analyzing every thing into its component parts as an engineering tendency, or as being squarely in the tradition of our illustrious scholars such as Imam Ghazaly. Either way I beg your indulgence.)

The first component is to look at the significance, importance, and/or prominence of humor in Islamic intellectual history. The second component is to consider “racy” humor or sexual innuendo in jokes in the general history of Muslim communities (i.e. regardless of the authoritativeness or Islamic credentials of authors and purveyors of this type of humor). The final component is to consider the attitude specifically of authoritative voices (scholars, pious individuals, respected writers, etc.) with regards to the same matter. As an afterthought, we should also cast a brief glance on classical discourses on sexuality.

Obviously, this is getting way too long again. So at the risk of leaving you with an undesirable cliffhanger I am going to stop here and take up these questions in installment three inshaa Allah.

Jazaakumullahu khayran to everyone that expressed interest in this subject and jazaakumullahu khayran for waiting (assuming you did ).

One disclaimer to begin with: this is a blog entry not a scholarly research paper . I will quote a given hadeeth if it was quoted in a credible source without myself attempting to check its authenticity. In general, the points I make below are not in need of specific textual backup: where they are references to the sunna they are self-evident; where they are references to other individual or communal practice they are argued based on appropriate sources.

That said, it is reported (e.g. in al-Tabaqat al-Kubra by ibn Sa’d) that Zaid ibn Thabit was once asked to describe the character of the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him. He said, “What can I say? I was his neighbor. When a piece of revelation would come to him he would call me and I would write it down. At the same time, he was with us – when we talk about dunya he would talk about it right along with us, when we talk about food he would talk about it right along with us. You want me to tell you everything such as that regarding him?”

The point of the hadeeth and others like it is that the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him lived his life as a man. He would joke when appropriate, laugh when appropriate, cry when appropriate, and he would console his companions when they needed it. Many of us have heard some of the stories where the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him would make a joke – but he was always careful to speak exactly the truth. Notwithstanding this, he was a man of his people, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, and he would use the language and idioms of his people, sometimes subconsciously. For example it is narrated that he visited Umm Sulaym once and saw a young orphan girl that Umm Sulaym was raising. He had not seen her in a while and realized that she had grown. With characteristic gentleness and humor he remarked on it, but he used a phrase, common in the language of the Arabs, that literally was a du’aa against the girl! (In Arabic the phrase is لا كبر سنك. Unfortunately I am not sure exactly what it means or what its idiomatic usage was. Literally it is either a reference to teeth growing or to age increasing; i.e. a reference to growing up. And taken absolutely literally it would seem to be a du’aa that the person never grows!) The young girl was upset by this and went crying to Umm Sulaym. Umm Sulaym immediately got dressed and went after the prophet, peace be upon him, questioning him (some would say reproaching him) as to why he had made a du’aa against the young girl. The prophet, may God’s peace be upon him, realizing how the girl had taken it thought this was so funny and laughed hard! He then reassured Umm Sulaym that God does not bring to pass any supplication by the prophet, may God’s peace be upon him, intentional or otherwise against any individual unless that individual deserves it. Point being that even though the prophet, may God’s peace be upon him, put such a huge premium on the truth, every language has some leeway established through people’s customs where things are simply not meant literally.

The companions of the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, certainly understood that they should enjoy their lives according to their customs without getting too picky about things. They joked with each other, both verbally and in practical jokes. The prophet, may God’s peace be upon him, on one of his travels was sitting in a small tent when one of his companions asked for permission to enter. When the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, told him to enter he jokingly asked (because the tent was so small) “All of me?”

In terms of practical jokes, the most famous companion for this is An-Nu’ayman ibn Amr. His many stories are told in al-Isaba by ibn Hajar (a book of biographies of the companions). Some of the stories happened during the time of the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him. For example the man was traveling in a trade caravan led by Abu Bakr (ra). In the absence of Abu Bakr (ra) he had a small argument with one of his friends, another companion named Suwaybit. The biographers actually differ on which of the two played the trick on the other, but to keep it simple I’ll stick with the version where An-Nu’ayman (ra) played the trick. He went off and found a group of people and told them that he owned a good hard-working slave that he wanted to sell and were they interested? They were so he warned them this guy is a smooth talker and quite argumentative. You come to pick him up after the sale he’s gonna swear up and down that he’s a free man. If you’re gonna listen to his protest and abandon him you’re just making it harder for me to control the guy and I don’t need this kind of headache. If you’re gonna buy him you pick him up and ignore what he says. They fell for it. So they come and pick the guy up and pay a price to al-Nu’aymaan and no matter how much Suwaybit protests they just ignore him. When Abu Bakr returns to the caravan people tell him what happened and he goes after those folks, explains the situation, and compensates them for their trouble. The narrator says that when the caravan returned to Madeena and the story spread, the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, and his companions kept telling the story and laughing about it for a year after! It is said that the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, so appreciated the fun that an-Nu’ayman introduced that he prayed to God to bring happiness to an-Nu’ayman because he was so keen to bring a laugh to the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him.

His most audacious episode comes during the khilafa of Uthma (ra). An old blind man walking into the masjid was looking for the proper place to urinate. He was about to do so right in the masjid when people shouted out at him to let him know where he was. Al-Nu’ayman sprang up and ran to the man. He took his hands as if to guide him to the proper place. What he actually did was to take him to the other side of the prayer hall and told him, “Here! Go ahead and urinate!” Of course, as the man is about to do so people shout out again, he’s a little embarrassed, but mostly he’s angry. He asks the identity of the young man who treated him with such disrespect and learns his name. He swears that if he ever comes across al-Nu’ayman he would beat him up!

Well, al-Nu’ayman waits until he sees the old man coming into the masjid one day and he goes right up to him and asks if he’d be interested in finding al-Nu’ayman to beat him up. When the man agrees that he’d like that very much, al-Nu’ayman takes him by the hand and leads him right up to where the khaleefa Uthman is praying. He stands him behind Uthman and tells him this is al-Nu’ayman. The man lifts his walking stick above his head and starts beating up Uthman as hard as he can until people rush to stop him .

For those of us expecting the sahaba to be all prim and proper this may be a little unexpected. Ibn Hajar says these stories and others were documented in a book called “Humor and Jokes” written by Az-Zubayr ibn Bakkar (as best as I can tell this appears to be the grandson of Abdullah ibn Az-Zubayr and Asmaa bint Abi Bakr). These stories and others are cited in this fatwa by Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawy on the subject of humor. (Among the other stories he mentions is literally a food-fight between Aisha and Sawda with the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, sitting between them and laughing!)

So far we have just scratched the surface. We’ve only talked about jokes as practiced by the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, and his companions. As for how our scholars looked at this we’ve only seen a hint so far. Apparently there was an early scholar that saw fit to compile a book just about jokes and humor. Apparently also other scholars saw fit to quote this book widely (it is cited by Imam Ghazzaly in the Ihya and by Imam ibn Hajar in al-Isaba, among others). Also, we can see that the jokes had something of a range, from the tamest pun, to the more playful as in the food fight I just mentioned, to the vicious type of practical joke that al-Nu’ayman (ra) was famous for. Finally, the hadeeth of Zayd (ra) and others like it indicate that we don’t know every joke told or heard by the prophet, may God’s peace be upon him. There is simply every indication that the prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, lived and promoted and encouraged and maintained an atmosphere of normalcy where people could simply go about their lives as normal, generally easy-going human beings who knew when they needed to be serious, when they needed to rise up to a challenge, and when they needed to make sacrifices, but who also knew that you needed a bit of fun in your life and that you just had to be normal!

We still need to take this further and see how it develops, but this particular post is already getting too long. So I hope it whets your appetite just a little . . . if there is interest inshaa Allah there will be part 2.

Al-hamdulillah, Little Mosque on the Prairie (hereafter LM) seems to be doing rather well. I haven’t been able to find a site that gives updated viewership or ratings for Canadian shows, but from the various reviews it appears that the show has settled in at about a million viewers regularly. The comparison is made with the benchmark Canadian show, Corner Gas, which gets a little less than 1.5 million viewers regularly. So the numbers seem to be healthy al-hamdulillah.

A number of Muslims are still very upset with the show, which I suppose is fine. I would have preferred to see our community in general simply accepting that comedy is largely a matter of taste and that we could agree that some of us will laugh while others will simply switch the channel. Unfortunately the bulk of the criticism seems to come at it from the “let’s all follow the Quran and sunnah” perspective, a perspective I personally find rather annoying since I take it for granted that in fact most of us are trying to follow the Quran and sunnah. I know I had promised a post (or maybe two) about humor in classical sources and I am almost ready to put that up so stay tuned inshaa Allah. I also received an email recently that’s been doing the rounds that summarizes the arguments against, so inshaa Allah I’ll take that up in a series of posts. All of this I intend to do in rapid succession if God wills, so if you’re interested in this please do stay tuned over the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, two things are “comforting” for those of us that have been enjoying the show. The first is all the right-wing rants against the show. Michael Coren bares his islamophobic teeth in this piece. (A short digression: I recorded an episode on the Michael Coren show a couple of months ago and the man was positively charming. I thought he was even-handed and quite fair in the way he ran the show. Off air he was respectful, friendly, and I would even say generous. This editorial seems to be written by a different person! Ironic how we can be so more vicious with each other when we’re not actually talking to a living breathing human being ). Another collection of hyperventilating rednecks may be found on this blog. The common theme in all these is their feeling that the show portrays all the Muslim characters in a good light (they are all lovable even if a little eccentric) whereas it does the opposite with the “white” townsfolk, especially the radio broadcaster. I disagree with their reading of how the non-Muslim folks are portrayed but therein lies the bulk of the irony: their perception is almost a mirror image of the Muslims that have reacted negatively to the show.

The second “comforting” thing was this online Q&A with the show’s creator Zarqa Nawaz. I had hoped to speak with her directly before blogging on this subject again but unfortunately did not get the chance. But this Q&A gives you a feel for what she likes and doesn’t like about the show. It should have been clear from the outset (and I had said this to a number of people verbally but didn’t put it in my previous review b/c I didn’t want to be distracted from the central messages there) that a show like this does not go on the air with one person entirely in control of the writing. So some things are gonna make it through that no one likes. Nonetheless, even some of the scenes that Zarqa found questionable I actually didn’t, which I suppose puts me in the extreme minority — so what else is new?

I’ve put comforting in quotes in the above two cases b/c in each case it’s a mixed blessing: on the one hand the perception of the show by hyperventilating rednecks tells you something about its positive impact and on the other hand we’re not necessarily seeking such a negative reaction; and on the one hand it helps to know that there is room for improving the show as Zarqa is better able to educate the rest of the writing team and on the other hand it’s not super great that this didn’t happen from the outset.

There are also things that are comforting, without the need for quotation marks. That the show seems to be successful al-hamduillah is a good sign. I hope it’s here to stay. The show has been getting funnier. And I believe (I don’t have scientific data here, just anecdotal evidence) that even among some of its critics the show has started to gain more acceptance. It’s also given us as a community the opportunity to discuss more of these issues.

So I’ve made a number of promises here that I’ll have to try and keep inshaa Allah. Over the next two weeks I will inshaa Allah blog about (roughly in this order):

1. Humor in classic texts
2. My personal review of episodes 3-6
3. The larger issues surrounding LM (some of these will be identified in the reviews; others come from the email I talked about earlier)

Until then, don’t worry, be happy! And please remember: Peace.

A recent news article speaks of Israel’s plans to investigate sheikh Raed Salah. Sheikh Raed is the leader of the Islamic Movement “inside the green line” (i.e. in the parts of Palestine taken for Israel in 1948). He has been routinely jailed by Israel on accusations of “sympathizing” with outlawed groups, etc. The last arrest led to a 2-year imprisonment for leading a banned demonstration (this is of course happens in the “only democracy in the Middle East”).

The accusations for this latest episode are no less amazing. He’s being investigated as a result of his words at a rally protesting the “excavations” at al-Aqsa. Two accusations are made:

1. He called for “an intifada to support al-Aqsa” — this is being labeled as incitement to violence. That makes sense! If the victim asks for help, it must be incitement .
2. He said words to the effect of “Our blood is on your clothes, on your doors, . . .” — this is being labeled as racism. Some old geezers like myself are likely to recognize these words as the lines of a very old poem about the oppression that Palestinians have suffered and continue to suffer. If they’re gonna investigate sh. Raed for the metaphorical reference of ‘my blood is on your hands’ I suspect the next step is to investigate all English teachers for teaching Macbeth!

The gall of it all!

I’ve been battling a cold for the last several days. At some point I felt like I’d just gotten from under a truck . I am still coughing, sniffling, sneezing, and generally feeling very miserable. I was so tired I couldn’t even blog . And it just got me thinking what it always gets me thinking under these circumstances . In high school biology they taught us that viruses were “the threshold of life” having some of the qualities of living things, but in other ways resembling non-living things. Then how feeble is the human being that is brought to a grinding halt by such a creature. And how arrogant is the human being that thinks to subjugate the Earth and all that lives upon it.

Yet, as soon as I have that thought, a kind of pessimistic needling comes along and I wonder how long I will may expect to remember <i>this</i> time? After all, how many times have I reflected upon disease and human frailty, only to forget a little while later and go back to ‘business-as-usual’. Or how often have I taken heed from the death of a loved one or a stranger, only to forget just a little bit later and return to life’s busy-ness.

There are those among the servants of God that are more constant in their remembrance even as they toil in His service in the company of others. There are those whose hearts are connected with God even as their bodies dwell on Earth, whose spirits are attached to the Latter Life even as they live out this one, and whose entire being yearns for the sight of God and the company of His messenger, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, even as they bear witness to the labors of humanity. They struggle and then they taste the sweetness of faith and intimacy with the Divine.

But as we aspire to have that be our abiding condition, we realize that everyone forgets. Some may forget less frequently, or suffer less in the loss. Yet the nature of human beings is that we forget. Far from being a source of regret or a “calamity” to dwell upon, it is probably more accurate, more productive, and truer to our purpose to remember (since we do forget) that the prime lesson for which Adam and Eve, peace be upon them, were placed in paradise for a time was the fact of human forgetfulness.

ولقد عهدنا إلى آدم من قبل فنسي ولم نجد له عزما

(We gave Adam the covenant beforehand and he forgot and we found no resolve with him). So the real trick is not that we do not forget. Wisdom may lay in accepting that we will forget and bringing to our selves reminders as often as we need them. Perhaps this is why the Quran tells us that we will constantly be tested in a variety of ways that we may return. Perhaps this is why the Prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, was constantly giving his companions brief reminders that would affect them but not tire or bore them. Perhaps each of us should establish constant mechanisms for remembering what we are sure to forget.

So as a reminder, meant for myself before it can be of use for anyone else, I looked up the hadeeth that I have heard so frequently, “Make the best of five before five: your life before you die, your youth before you age, your health before you ail, your spare time before you get busy, and your wealth before you get poor.”

Thursday we had Norman Finkelstein speaking at McMaster. A little bird tells me there were serious efforts to intervene with the powers that be, both on and off campus, to prevent the talk from actually happening. Al-hamdulillah those efforts were unsuccessful and the audience was edified by a compelling talk from a very articulate man of principle. The event was organized by MMPJ and SPHR, who are both to be congratulated on a courageous event, well-organized, and well-managed. They did us proud al-hamdulillah. In particular, there was a gaffe at some point where they tried to show a documentary from youtube that highlights some of Finkelstein’s views. They got the wrong video, and wound up showing a propaganda video produced by some of his “intellectual” foes painting him as a holocaust denier. The moderator, Prof. Graham McQueen from McMaster, reacted well and promptly to put things in perspective, then our sister Sabah, the president of MMPJ, took the podium and eloquently put the matter to rest. (One member of the audience saw fit to bring up the matter in the Q&A and Finkelstein was able to use the opportunity to expose some of the tactics of the afore-mentioned foes ).

We gave Professor Finkelstein the heartiest applause when in the course of his discussion he remarked that he happened to be familiar with the realities of life on American campuses in general through first hand experience since he had “for reasons I am not particularly proud of taught at a number” of said campuses. Obviously, this self-deprecatingly humorous remark was a reference to the fact that part of the price he’s had to pay was the lack of a secure long-term academic appointment .

We also gave him a well-deserved standing ovation at the end of the talk. If you have never heard of Norman Finkelstein I strongly suggest you at least look at his book, “The Holocaust Industry” (he has four other books). If you have a club for political activism/education on your campus I strongly suggest you brave whatever resistance you face and get this man invited to your campus. If our experience is any indication, it’ll be worth it.

One of my favorite clips is this minute from young Dilbert.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/g_kEGiSaLNU" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

One of the reasons I like Dilbert so much is that I can bear first hand witness to its uncanny accuracy in many an industrial environment. Clearly, not every company is a Dilbert-like company. And as with any comedic venture there has to be some exaggeration, although in this case it’s not very much at all .

I recently re-discovered the Dilbert website. But what’s more important is that with it I discovered the Dilbert blog (now officially the first “thing” on my blogroll). Scott Adams seems to have interesting insights even away from engineers, corporate culture, comic strips, and even comedy in general. He has this running argument with some atheist guy on the net that seems to think that for someone to as much as wonder out loud whether the Huxley-Darwin apes-at-the-typewriter model of the universe is compelling qualifies such a person for moron duty and immediately earns them the pleasure of his scathing attacks. This is not to say that Scott Adams is a theist or a creationist. What he believes is (a) his own business, (b) probably not easily categorizable in the convenient bins we intellectually keep, (c) neither particularly authoritative nor a guarantee of correctness in any case, and (d) should not be (and thankfully is not) entirely clear just from reading one or two entries on his blog. If he has spelled out his beliefs on the blog, or if he does so as a matter of course, or if he is in the process of doing so, I plan on reading the blog regularly enough that inshaa Allah I’ll understand. But whether he does spell out his beliefs or whether he just goes on expressing whatever particular insight he has on any particular day, it makes for good reading, and a starting point for further reflection. Good on ya Scott!

Al-hamdulillah, I have to say that I am rather pleased with the way that this blog has evolved. Considering how much I like to talk it’s probably not a surprise that this has become a very addictive exercise . There are days when I am just too exhausted or too overbooked or too disorganized to be able to blog, and al-hamdulillah I am not at the stage where I suffer withdrawals symptoms on such days . Nonetheless, on any given day, if I can’t blog I feel that something is missing. Very curious development given that this journal is barely 4 weeks old! Even more curious (or, in Wonderlingo, curioser and curioser) given that I’ve had things I’ve meant to write in more traditional formats that were actually started 4-5 years ago and are still in the “in progress” stage! Al-hamdulillah, it is a blessing to be given an opportunity that matches one’s style, and it is a blessing to be able to express and share oneself.

For those of you that are following this little project, I thank you from the bottom of my heart – it is your engagement that makes this rewarding and keeps it alive.

A quick update then on how this thing has been shaping up. With tremendous help from Jaffer and Suleiman the custom header for the particular theme that I am using has been further customized to use certain pictures. So now the header picture rotates between six scenes: two from Cordoba, one is the courtyard of al-Hambra, and one each from the three sacred mosques. Inshaa Allah there will be more to come, I just grabbed a beautiful picture of a sidewalk in Cordoba from Farah’s blog.

I also finally got around to creating a blogroll. The blogroll currently has People and Places, and inshaa Allah I will eventually add Things. A quick intro to my good friends listed there (I won’t put links here, it’ll get too tedious, but please visit them from the links in the sidebar):

• Ahmed Deif is the Head of MAC Youth and a newcomer to blogging. He seems to be metering his output at one post per week, but take it from me they are worth the wait!
• Ali Jafferi is a thoughtful, creative, courageous, and engaged member of the McMaster crowd. He has much to say about the state of the ummah and the way we need to understand our past, present, and future.
• Ayman Khafagi is my good friend down south! He started a blog long ago and then allowed it to lie dormant for a while. I am glad that I had something to do with his return to the blogosphere and it has been a pleasure. His blog about the death of Muhannad Jondy rahimahullah is appropriately somber. But humorous or solemn he is consistently provocative and engaging. (OK he’s my friend so I’m biased; he’s also a member of the MAS Youth Exec so I’m even more biased; but check it out for yourself and you’ll see).
• Farah I have already mentioned. She has this amazing photoblog and she has incredible taste. I loved the exploding icecaps, and the photoblog has an eclectic range from natural scenery to architecture to calligraphy to art.
• Hadeel is our correspondent in Cairo and she’s doing a terrific job. She’s recently promised a series of open letters to Egypt that I’m sure will be especially engaging.
• Hafsa, our newlywed hijabi, and her husband Omair, have been sharing pearls of wisdom gleaned by the two of them from marriage, travel, and new careers. Wait’ll they start with children .
• Hamza Moin is Maniac Muslim . The best way to describe this is that it’s a genuinely cool project. Cool may be an outdated descriptor, but for me it captures the Maniac Muslim phenomenon, and I do believe it is well on its way to becoming a phenomenon inshaa Allah. Visionary!
• Jaffer Maniar is a gem (I am plagiarizing his description of Suleiman here ). He’s the one that’s been guiding me through my illustrative efforts and he’s quite a talented young man. You’ll see some of his comments on my blog. He updates every Sunday so I suggest you designate for yourself at random a day in the week that you can check out his blog (not necessarily Sunday). That way we won’t overwhelm his server with traffic .
• And keeping the best for last (it just worked that way alphabetically ), Suleiman. Jaffer calls him a gem and I agree. May God reward him greatly for what he’s done and is doing with hadithuna. I am still waiting for permission to share with you articles from the Ghost in the Machine workshop but when I do inshaa Allah I will share a really insightful paper on social software (blogging, bookmarking, etc.) I believe hadithuna is a great idea, and one whose time is now. And it owes both its existence and its upkeep to Suleiman’s vision and dedication. And as if all this wasn’t enough, his own blog is just outstanding.

So what’s next? First, inshaa Allah I aim to keep on bloggin’ . You can always check out my “Coming Soon” page to see what’s in my queue and you’re welcome to suggest other things. I haven’t been immediately responding to comments because I am ever hopeful that if I start interesting threads we can get decent discussions going and I don’t necessarily want to be in the center of the discussion . But I do read every comment and I do mean to eventually respond to every open comment (this may be a little ambitious given that we already have 5x comment-to-blog ratio) if not directly then at least by inclusion in future posts.

Second on my list is to finally settle on what I want to include in my About page and perhaps have a nifty author profile in the sidebar a la Suleiman.

Third is to figure out how to use the flickr lightbox both in the body of the blog and in the sidebar so I can upload some pictures.

I also need to inshaa Allah expand the blogroll. There are a couple of really interesting blogs that I have seen for people that I may not personally know but have nonetheless had a strong impact on me. Gradually they’ll be added to the blogroll. I am also trying to talk Wael into doing this inshaa Allah. We’ll see. I will not add a place or thing to the blogroll unless I blog about it first. Hopefully that’ll keep things manageable size-wise.

And last but not least, I want to explore the 3-column version of my current theme provided I can get it to work with minimum headache to Suleiman.

So please keep checking this out and help me with your feedback. And remember to leave comments

Al-hamdulillah several people seemed to enjoy reading about to Dr. Mohammad Natsir. One comment lamented the absence of North American Muslim figures of a similar caliber. I think this is a sentiment most of us would share. Having said that, I believe that we unfortunately underestimate the great men and women that contributed so much to building a Muslim community in North America. Just to mention a couple of examples, Imam Warith Deen Muhammad’s struggle to lead people from a particular type of ignorance into the light of Islam required much courage and personal sacrifice. Imam Siraj Wahhaj’s campaign to close the crack houses in Brooklyn are legendary among those that still remember them. Dr. Ahmed El-Kadi is a name most of the readers of this blog won’t be familiar with but his sacrifices, his generosity, and his strength have left their mark on the entire North American Muslim community, even as we fail to realize or acknowledge their impact, Dr. Ismail Raji al-Faruqui gave his life for his cause. Most of us only know Dr. Jamal Badawi as a lecturer and speaker, but his contributions both in the intellectual arena and that of activism are far beyond that. Among the women we may wish to explore the contributions of Srs. Iman El-Kadi and Lamia Faruqui.

I could go on listing names. Unfortunately, I do not know enough about the people that I have mentioned. I pray and I hope that as we continue to mature as a community we will learn how to study our own selves. I pray and I hope that there will come a time when the lives of our heroes in the struggle for community are studied, documented, and held up for inspiration. In the meantime, the list above is meant to be neither exhaustive nor representative. Initially I was not going to list anyone, but I could not see how I else could communicate the knowledge that we do have our own homegrown heroes and role models, if we but knew them. There are countless others who lived before, with, and after the examples I list above. There are those whose contributions are leaving their mark on the community day by day. As always, we pray, and we hope. But we should also learn, and we should strive.
And so I want to continue to play my part. So for now, I went back to the book I mentioned before and chose another outstanding character. It is always difficult for an author to convey the greatness of an individual to those that were not contemporary with him, did not meet him, were not directly impacted by his charisma. To try and give some idea of the greatness of the man we’ll talk about here, think about two things:

1. Al-Azhar has had rectors (grand Imams) since the 1600’s (the first shaykh-ul-Azhar passed away in 1690). Of the 49 times that the position has been held, the majority were selected by the scholars of al-Azhar themselves. At some point in the last thirty years (not exactly sure when) the position became a governmental appointment. Of the 40+ times that the Grand Imam was elected by the scholars of al-Azhar, exactly one shaykh was from outside Egypt: sh. Muhammad al-Khidr Hussein, who was Tunisian.
2. If you consider the greatness of students to be a measure of the greatness of the teacher, consider that sh. al-Khidr claims among his students sh. Sha’rawy, sh. Abdel-Fattah Abou Ghudda, and sh. Abdel-Hamid ibn Badis, just to name a few.

Sh. al-Khidr was born in Nafta, Tunisia, in 1876. He memorized the Quran before he was 12 years old, and moved with his family to the capital city, Tunis, in 1888. He then enrolled in al-Zaytouna and studied with some of its leading scholars including his own maternal uncle sh. Muhammad al-Makki ibn Azzouz.

With religious passion and patriotism sheikh al-Khidr turned to anti-colonialist activism. In 1903 he established a magazine called al-Sa’aada al-’Udhma (Ultimate Happiness). The magazine was dedicated to the exposition of Islam and the exposure of colonialism. Two years later it was shut down by French colonial authorities.

Career wise, sheikh al-Khidr became a judge, then resigned that post and settled into teaching at al-Zaytouna. Colonial authorities pursued him for his activism so he escaped to Damascus in 1911, stayed there at length, teaching in al-Sultaniyya. However he had to leave Syria when the French occupied it and he became persona non grata. He settled in Egypt in 1920.

In Egypt he became friends with Ahmed Taymour Pasha and Ustadh Muhibb-ud-Deen al-Khateeb, two leading figures in the efforts for re-awakening the ummah, rejuvenating the intellectual traditions of Islam, and addressing the challenge of colonialism. He quickly became a leading champion of Islamic intellectual forces and wrote two scholarly works responding to Aly Abdel Raziq and Taha Hussein, two authors that, each in his own way, had written books attacking fundamental Islamic concepts and promoting secularism and an abandonment of the Islamic heritage.

Sheikh al-Khidr decided to sit for the final examination from al-Azhar to obtain the degree of ‘aalimiyya (roughly equivalent to a Ph.D.). The examiners were so impressed with his erudition, one of them (sheikh Abdel-Hamid al-Labban) described him as an “ocean without shores”. With the degree from al-Azhar he was counted as one of its scholars and began to teach in al-Azhar.

During the twenties and the thirties sheikh al-Khidr was concerned, together with the leading Islamic intellectuals of his time, with the state of the ummah intellectually, socially, and spiritually. Together with Muhibb-ud-Deen al-Khatib, sh. Rashid Rida, Ahmed Taymour Pasha, and others they championed efforts to address missionary efforts in Egypt and to challenge British colonial authorities as well as the corruption of the ruling class. He was one of several advisors that Imam Hasan al-Banna went to as a young man to rally scholars in defense of Islamic values, and that al-Banna consulted in his activism and establishing al-Ikhwan al-Muslimoon. During that period, sheikh al-Khidr and his friends Taymour Pasha and Muhibb-ud-Deen al-Khatib founded a social organization, Young Muslim Men’s Society (jam’iyyat al-shubbaan al-muslimeen). He also established a society that he called the Islamic Guidance Society and was responsible for the publication or editorship of three Islamic magazines.

In recognition of his scholarship, he was selected as a member of the newly-established Assembly for the Arabic Language (majma’ al-lugha al-’arabiyya). In continuation of his activism he established and headed a Society for the Defense of North Africa that became home to the leaders of patriotic struggles in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.

In 1951 he was selected as shaykh-ul-Azhar. By 1953 he resigned in protest of the excesses of Nasser’s regime and his government’s attempts to bring pressure to bear on al-Azhar to support him in his stances, particularly against al-ikhwan. Shaikh al-Uqayl (the author of the book that includes this bio) was studying in al-Azhar during that period and came to know the sheikh personally, to meet with him, to study with him, and see up close the factors that influenced his decision. He says, “To speak of this erudite scholar, who kept himself away from going along with those propagating injustice or running with the tyrannical and insignificant, is to speak of manhood in truest meaning, and of scholarship in its most beautiful suit. Those that lead the circles of knowledge have a duty to keep them honored. Those that wear the mantle of scholarship should be more apt to recognize the value of scholarship and the dignity of the scholar. That was our revered teacher Muhammad al-Khidr Hussain, who brought to life by his stands the example of the real men among scholars old and new.”

Other than his books mentioned above rebutting the efforts of the secularists, most of the sheikh’s scholarship and publications dealt with the Arabic language and its constructs. His courage, his activism, and his character served as a role model for the young people from all over the Islamic World that had come to study in al-Azhar. And his courage against Nasser stood out in a time when men with stronger bodies but weaker souls ran away from tribulation.

Sheikh Muhammad al-Khidr Hussain passed away in 1957 and was buried in the cemetery of the Taymour family in Egypt. May Allah reward him with jannah and bring us together with him on the Day of Judgment.