Weekly Trust (Kaduna)
Abdalla Uba Adamu
5 April 2002
opinion
Bridging the Divide: Jews for Allah
But while Trojans, worms and other malicious computer codes were being exchanged over the internet between Muslims and Jews, an unusual group exists to bridge the gap, and that is Jews for Allah (http://jews-for-allah.org/). This is a nice thought in bridging the divide between Jews and Muslims. As stated on their website, they are ethnically Jewish, religiously Muslim (see illustration).
Considerable attention was then given to arguments about what it is like to be a Jew, and a Muslim. One of their links, http://jews-for-allah.org/jewish-mythson-islam/ provides a series of articles about Jewish myths held on Islam, including one that views that Islam was meant only for Arabs. In addition, they were also giving out free books, copies of the Holy Qur'an, both text and mp3 (sound files), as well as comparative religious links to Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism. All told, a much better platform for dialog between Muslims and Jews, than bullets and computer viruses.
Closely associated with efforts such as this are those aimed at those wishing to convert to Islam. The site, http://convertstoislam.org/ does just that: provides facilities for those wishing to convert to Islam from other religions.
Freebies and Fun, Islamically
One of the bugbears of computing especially in Arabic is the need for an Arabic operating system. This is fine as it goes; except that most software (e.g. CD burning software like Nero Burning Rom) would require a specialized Arabic version. So those requiring Arabic computing are forced to give up the use of other software that will not work with Arabic windows kernel. The internet is again a savior in the sense that many designers have created Arabic fonts that can work with any operating system, and they are free! One of the best source for such fonts is http://babel.uoregon.edu/yamada/fonts/arabic.html, as well as http://www.ummah.net/islamloads/apps3.htm. And if you have a project that requires pictures of mosques from all over the Islamic world, they are available free at http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~calmsa/images/images.html, which can be used as a s basis for wallpapers on the desktop. A personal free website, http://members.nbci.com/usame6666/index.htm, lists free Islamic screen savers for your Windows operating system - a much better alternative than the standard fare that comes with windows. If you have never been to Makkah and Madina, take consolation at http://www.geocities.com/hicaz2000/ where there are many pictures of the two holy cities, and http://www.arches.uga.edu/~godlas/prophmosq.html lists images of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) at Madina - a really stunning architectural masterpiece. For those who had been therefore before, it is a nice reminder of a pleasant journey.
There are many of us who would love to either polish their rusty Arabic, or learn it from the scratch. For the busy and harried civil servant too enmeshed in meetings to spare the two hours per day for such task, the internet provides a rich variety of sources of learning Arabic. Try, for instance, http://www.arabic2000.com/products/arabic.html, where you can download Arabic Tutor. And if you can already speak Arabic, then surely you need a dictionary. Fret not, at the Archive of Arabic-English Vocabulary (http://arabic.wjh.harvard.edu/vocab.htm) you have scholars from Harvard University, no less, making sure you get your grammar right. If this is all too advanced for you, then try Al-Lisan Al-Arabi (http://www.webstar.co.uk/~al-lisan) for a more down-to-earth starters course.
Still on the useful programmes front, Al Muhaddith (http://muhaddith.com/) provides a lot of freebies, one of which is a prayer times program. This wonderful piece of software (totally free, remember?) calls your attention to prayer by issuing out the Azan at the appropriate time. It has geographical co-ordinates of over 2000 cities, so your corner of the world is likely to be catered for. It can also be set to read portions of the Holy Qur'an about 15 minutes before the prayer time.
If you are a brother into the Da'awa process, then enhance your knowledge of the activity by downloading free books at -in zipped format so you require WinZip in order to view them -http://www.ummah.net/islamloads/loads/text/dawa.zip, and
http://members.xoom.com/Sumair/Other/da'wah1.zip. Further, at Daily Ayat, http://www.muslimsonline.com/~ayat, you can download an appropriate ayat to everyday you log on to the Internet, or have many ayats downloaded and invoked from the Start group.
If you feel Yahoo! or Hotmail are too commercially-driven with their numerous ads on your email page (what do you expect, after all, it is free), how about an alternative Muslim web-based email at http://www.muslimsonline.com/webemail.html? And while running away from Yahoo! or Microsoft's eCards, many did not realize that there are free Muslim greeting cards at http://www.inminds.com/cardcentre.html, http://www.muslimdirectory.co.uk/, http://www.islamicart.com/vcards/, all with excellent graphics.
How about Ahmad Deedat while you work? His speeches are available -in RealPlayer format - at http://home2.swipnet.se/~w-20479/Audio.htm.
Community Majalisa: Online Groups
If you want to dodge the bullets, real or in the form of HTML code, then you can join the thriving internet community of Muslims. I find Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com) Groups (http://groups.yahoo.com) more honorable and reliable than other directory services (e.g. Alta Vista at www.altavista.com, or Lycos at www.lycos.com) so my discussion is based on Yahoo! It is also much faster than Microsoft Communities (http://communities.msn.com), although less pretty.
Yahoo! operates a service called Groups, in which individuals as small as two to as many as over ten thousand can get together and exchange information, opinions, news and perspectives on any aspect of their lives. The Islamic communities on Yahoo is a really thriving Majalisa. Last time I checked, there were 2,700 Islamic communities on Yahoo! Joining (or even starting) a Yahoo! group is free, subject only to the approval of the person who thought of the idea in the first place (called The Moderator). One group that that caught my attention was Minhaj As sunnah, with 10, 991 members, who stated their objectives as: "The achievements of the Sahabah in their time was the result of their love for Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala) and His Rasul (Sallallahu 'alahi Wasallam). Love was a great dynamic force in the lives of the early Muslims. It was this force that made them forego their luxuries, not care for their lives, give up their desire for wealth, ignore all afflictions, and have no fear of even death. There is no room for any other consideration except that of the beloved in the heart saturated with love. May Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala), through His mercy, grant us His own love and that of His Beloved Nabi (Sallallahu 'alahi Wasallam), so that we may be blessed with devotion in His worship and have a sense of comfort in all difficulties faced in His service."
If you are interested, use the following link to join them at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Minhaj_as_Sunnah/join.
Part II: Loose Cannons and Oddballs on the Islamic Internet: The Submitters
Like all families, Islam also has its share of black sheep. The internet, being gender, and religion neutral, provides the same freedom for these black sheep. Such groups also reveal the double-edged nature of the sword of the internet. There are groups who either do not believe in the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) or who doubt the existence of the Creator. The latter are clearly non-Muslims, so I will only focus on those who claim to be within the Islamic fold, yet find the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) difficult to accept in his entirety. The most articulate and comprehensive cluster of such black sheep are those who call themselves The Submitters, at http://www.submission.org. This is a world-wide organization with many adherents in all parts of the world, including Kano, Kaduna and Katsina.
Another of their names in Nigeria is Al-Quraniyyun; i.e. those who accept the Qur'an only. Their credo is simple: they do not accept any Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW). They do accept him as a prophet of Allah, and indeed in one of their essays they argue that if anyone rejects the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) he is no longer a submitter (their preferred word for Muslim). However, they claim that there was a considerable time gap between the Prophet and the compilation of his sayings; as such there could be errors in the narrations. They therefore took the simple, but deadly step of rejecting all the Hadith and concentrating all their worship on Allah's injunctions in the Qur'an. As they argued, "The overwhelming majority of the "Muslim World" as well as the majority of the Muslims in this country do not follow the Koran which was revealed by God to Prophet Mohammad about 1400 years ago. Instead the majority of the "Muslims" in the world follow man-made books written by scholars called Hadith and Sunnah written 200+ years after the revelation of the Koran." (http://www.submission.org/christians/Franklin_Graham.html#THANK)
The central personality in the establishment of The Submitters was an Egyptian biochemist resident in Tucson, Arizona, United States. He was Dr. Rashad Khalifa. (more info on him at http://www.submission.org/khalifa.html). For some unknown reason, Dr. Khalifa decided to declare himself the messenger of God, although he was careful not to proclaim himself a prophet of God. He derived his "authority" from the following verse of the Qur'an (note, his translation):
"GOD took a covenant from prophets, saying, "I will give you the scripture and wisdom. Afterwards, a messenger will come to confirm all existing scriptures. You shall believe in him and support him." He said, "Do you agree with this, and pledge to fulfill this covenant?" They said, "We agree." He said, "You have thus borne witness, and I bear witness along with you." (Al-Imran 81, from Dr. Rashad Khalifa's "Authorized" Translation of the Qur'an)
Interestingly, for Arabic grammarians and Islamic scholars, this is the translation of the same ayat, as in Abdullahi Yusuf Ali, the most widely distributed English translation of the Qur'an:
"Behold! Allah took the covenant of the Prophets saying: "I give you a Book and Wisdom; then comes to you an Apostle confirming what is with you; do ye believe him and render him help." Allah said: "Do ye agree and take this My Covenant as binding on you?" They said: "We agree." He said: "Then bear witness and I am with you among the witnesses." (Al-Imran, 81).
A careful comparison of the two translations will reveal glaring differences. Since Dr. Khalifa's translation has never subjected to independent critique, except by his own Submitters, it is difficult to accept the veracity of his translations.
To be continued
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