For many years, I had pondered over the 17,000 verses naration in Kaafi and was never truly satisfied by classical explanations, after some digging we found an alternative explanation…The Hadith is weak.

This article in the following link is based upon my research with aid and recourse to scholarship, and articulately presented with the help of Nader Zaveri.

I present his presentation of our findings for your attention:

http://revivingalislaam.blogspot.com/2010/09/hadeeth-17000-verses-in-quraan-saheeh.html

http://www.fileden.com/files/2010/6/24/2896028//17000%20verses%20in%20Quraan%20-%20Weak.pdf

It’s dedicated to all the brothers of the faith, who are murdered by those thugs and animals that believe they are out on a worthy cause killing Imamis who “believe in Tahreef” despite claiming not to. Trust me, no taqiyyah involved, We don’t believe in Tahreef.

Interesting discussion on ethics of interfaith dialogue.

Check it out if you have time insha Allah.

Unto us a Savior is born,

Sent to save us from our plight,

Rising son of al-Mustafa,

The Guiding Star,

Our Light upon Light.

Sent to right all of our wrongs,

To turn all our failings back to right,

Our fiery beacon of hope,

Burning through the darknest of nights.

Yet because we fall so short,

We suffer, and yet we see no light,

To us it seems there is no hope,

Our Leader is veiled from our sight.

slowly awaiting for that day,

For his Shi’as to be ready,

Ready for him to lead the way.

Strive Oh Shi’a, As much as you can,

Until then, prepare and pray,

Ya Allah, please let me live,

Or Raise me up…

…To see that day.

On the 17th of July 2009, I proceeded into a debate or interfaith dialogue with the esteemed Professor Wood of Fordham University, New York. Professor Wood alongside his former-Qadiyani now turned Christian Apologist Nabeel Qureshi have now been successfully running a Ministry aimed at converting Muslims known as Acts 17 Apologetics.
Unfortunately due to a lapse in communication on my behalf, the original estimated time of 3 hours allocated to the debate was cut down to 2 hours, with an anticipated Audience Q and A session of 30 mins, cutting down the allocated speaking time of each speaker to 45 mins each.

As I have prior informed most, if the debate were to be analysed on Rhetoric and Oratory skill alone, then there is no doubt what so ever that my esteemed opponent Professor Wood with all his speaking experience had definitely won the debate hands down. For I make no claims to be the calm, composed experienced orator that Professor Wood is.

Prior to the debate, I had asked Professor Wood to kindly restrict any objections he had to ones that could feasibly be responded to within the time frame permitted, he knows as well as I do that defending one’s faith is a lot more difficult to do within a short time frame than to fire out shots at another faith. Professor Wood kindly agreed, unfortunately I felt that during the debate to raise 50 so called “contradictions” in the Qur’an was something that broke our agreement and therefore should be noted, particularly given that our time was cut by roughly an hour.

Other than that, I’d like to thank Professor Wood for his courteous behavior and for refraining from using any offensive language in the debate itself, for to do so would jeopardize the future of interfaith debates of such sorts in Mosques. Despite leveling many hostile criticisms that are expected in such discourse, my opponent remained candid, even at times when I most likely did not, which is a great credit to him.

Self-Criticisms with Hindsight: Unfortunately I entered into some rather cheap scoring points with David due to losing my temper a lot, in which I pulled the classic “Nabeel Qureshi” move of impersonating tone of voice, when reiterating Professor Wood’s objections.
I really abhor the fact I had entered into such a line of fire, as this is one which I myself usually condemn and thus should never be doing myself. I can only reiterate, that I did this out of frustration due to what I perceived to be a lack of integrity on David’s behalf vis a vis a previously agreed upon matter (namely the restricting of objections). I can only hope that such behavior will only highlight my fallibility and lack of experience in the field of Apologetics and shall perhaps allow myself the recognition that I require both more spiritual self-building and also the ability to act in an Islamic manner under pressure and at all times. God Willing, this shall change with time and reflection.

In terms of David’s sly move, which I have made reference to several times:
David and I, approximately two nights before the Debate had made an agreement that he would restrict objections to ones I could feasibly answer within the time frame provided. I, in turn agreed to restrict my evidences of Prophethood to a similar amount of arguments.

Upon mutually discovering our time had been cut to two hours in total, David informed me that his objections were 3, to which I awaited several contextual objections which I could hope to respond to. Then in his opening statement, I was truly marveled to discover that he presented at least 23 so called contradictions in the Qur’an and attempted to claim this was but one argument!
Given that I had merely 10 minutes to respond, one hopes that others can empathize with my shock and horror and inability to respond to every single so called contradiction.
With the exception of this, I took issue with two other areas namely the following:

1) In regards to the Miracle of the Qur’an, I quoted Arabists and recognized authorities in the Western world on the Arabic Language and Literary Devices, ones who would be more than adequately qualified to make a statement on such matters. Where as my friend David, cited the following people.

a) A Naturalist Iranian with real issues against Islam namely Ali Dashti, who has merely 4 years of Arabic study under his belt, and has never specialized in the Arabic grammatical sciences.
b) Dr. Gerd R Puin, who wrote his comments on the Qur’an in the context of the discovery of the Sana’a Manuscripts which are devoid of Diocritical markings in order to establish which harf or letter is which. Dr. Puin it must be pointed out is a specialist on Book bindings and Orthography, hardly an expert on Arabic Grammar or the like and can thus not be forwarded as such.
It is a sad day Indeed when such people are advanced as being as being on par with such arabists as A.J Arberry and Michael Sells and the like!

2) The issue of Historical Accuracy, We saw no arguments of Professor Wood’s to prove the following:
a) Ur of the Chaldeans being a scribal error.
b) Alexander Legend being copied by Islam
c) Second Targum of Esther being Pre-Islamic.
With the exception of these things, I think Mr. Wood presented an interesting case.

(Munajat= Intimate Conversational Prayer with God)

In the Name of God, the All-merciful,
the All-compassionate

And those who perform jihad for Us, We shall certainly guide them in Our ways, and God is surely with the doers of good. (Quran XXXIX; 69)

You have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad. (Hadith)

The Arabic term jihad, usually translated into European languages as holy war, more on the basis of its juridical usage in Islam rather than on its much more universal meaning in the Quran and Hadith, is derived from the root jhd whose primary meaning is to strive or to exert oneself. Its translation into holy war combined with the erroneous notion of Islam prevalent in the West as the ‘religion of the sword’ has helped to eclipse its inner and spiritual significance and to distort its connotation. Nor has the appearance upon the stage of history during the past century and especially during the past few years of an array of movements within the Islamic world often contending or even imposing each other and using the word jihad or one of its derivative forms helped to make known the full import of its traditional meaning which alone is of concern to us here. Instead recent distortions and even total reversal of the meaning of jihad as understood over the ages by Muslims have made it more difficult than ever before to gain insight into this key religious and spiritual concept.

To understand the spiritual significance of jihad and its wide application to nearly every aspect of human life as understood by Islam, it is necessary to remember that Islam bases itself upon the idea of establishing equilibrium within the being of man as well as in the human society where he functions and fulfills the goals of his earthly life. This equilibrium, which is the terrestrial reflection of Divine Justice and the necessary condition for peace in the human domain, is the basis upon which the soul takes its flight towards that peace which, to use Christian terms, ‘passeth understanding’. If Christian morality sees the aim of the spiritual life and its own morality as based on the vertical flight towards that perfection and ideal which is embodied in Christ, Islam sees it in the establishment of an equilibrium both outward and inward as the necessary basis for the vertical ascent. The very stability of Islamic society over the centuries, the immutability of Islamic norms embodied in the Shari’ah, and the timeless character of traditional Islamic civilization which is the consequence of its permanent and immutable prototype are all reflections of both the ideal of equilibrium and its realization as is so evident in the teachings of the Shari’ah (or Divine Law) as well as works of Islamic art, that equilibrium which is inseparable from the very name of islam as being related to salam or peace.

The preservation of equilibrium in this world, however, does not mean simply a static or inactive passivity since life by nature implies movement. In the face of the contingencies of the world of change, of the withering effects of time, of the vicissitudes of terrestrial existence, to remain in equilibrium requires continuous exertion. It means carrying out jihad at every stage of life. Human nature being what it is, given to forgetfulness and the conquest of our immortal soul by the carnal soul or passions, the very process of life of both the individual and the human collectivity implies the ever-present danger of the loss of equilibrium and the fact of falling into the state of disequilibrium which if allowed to continue cannot but lead to disintegration on the individual level and chaos on the scale of community life. To avoid this tragic end and to fulfill the entelechy of the human state which is the realization of unity (al-tawhid) or total integration, Muslims as both individuals and members of Islamic society must carry out jihad, that is they must exert themselves at all moments of life to fight a battle both inward and outward against those forces that if not combatted will destroy that equilibrium which is the necessary condition for the spiritual life of the person and the functioning of human society. This fact is especially true if society is seen as a collectivity which bears the imprint of the Divine Norm rather than an antheap of contending and opposing units and forces.

Man is at once a spiritual and corporeal being, a micro-cosm complete unto himself; yet he is the member of a society within which alone are certain aspects of his being developed and certain of his needs fulfilled. He possesses at once an intelligence whose substance is ultimately of a divine character and sentiments which can either veil his intelligence or abett his quest for his own Origin. In him are found both love and hatred, generosity and coveteousness, compassion and aggression. Moreover, there have existed until now not just one but several ‘humanities’ with their own religious and moral norms and national, ethnic and racial groups with their own bonds of affiliation. As a result the practice of jihad as applied to the world of multiplicity and the vicissitudes of human existence in the external world has come to develop numerous ramifications in the fields of political and economic activity and in social life and come to partake on the external level of the complexity which characterizes the human world.

In its most outward sense jihad came to mean the defence of dar al-islam, that is, the Islamic world, from invasion and intrusion by non-Islamic forces. The earliest wars of Islamic history which threatened the very existence of the young community came to be known as jihad par excellence in this outward sense of ‘holy war’. But it was upon returning from one of these early wars, which was of paramount importance in the survival of the newly established religious community and therefore of cosmic significance, that the Prophet nevertheless said to his companions that they had returned from the lesser holy war to the greater holy war, the greater jihad being the inner battle against all the forces which would prevent man from living according to the theomorphic norm which is his primordial and God given nature. Throughout Islamic history, the lesser holy war has echoed in the Islamic world when parts or the whole of that world have been threatened by forces from without or within. This call has been especially persistent since the nineteenth century with the advent of colonialism and the threat to the very existence of the Islamic world. It must be remembered, however, that even in such cases when the idea of jihad has been evoked in certain parts of the Islamic world, it has not usually been a question of religion simply sanctioning war but of the attempt of a society in which religion remains of central concern to protect itself from being conquered either by military and economic forces or by ideas of an alien nature. This does not mean, however, that in some cases especially in recent times, religious sentiments have not been used or misused to intensify or legitimize a conflict. But to say the least, the Islamic world does not have a monopoly on this abuse as the history of other civilizations including even the secularized West demonstrates so amply. Moreover, human nature being what it is, once religion ceases to be of central significance to a particular human collectivity, then men fight and kill each other for much less exalted issues than their heavenly faith. By including the question of war in its sacred legislation, Islam did not condone but limited war and its consequences as the history of the traditional Islamic world bears out. In any case the idea of total war and the actual practice of the extermination of whole civilian populations did not grow out of a civilization whose dominant religion saw jihad in a positive light. On the more external level, the lesser jihad also includes the socio-economic domain. It means the reassertion of justice in the external environment of human existence starting with man himself. To defend one’s rights and reputation, to defend the honour of oneself and one’s family is itself a jihad and a religious duty. So is the strengthening of all those social bonds from the family to the whole of the Muslim people (al-ummah) which the Shari’ah emphasizes. To seek social justice in accordance with the tenets of the Quran and of course not in the modern secularist sense is a way of re-establishing equilibrium in human society, that is, of performing jihad, as are constructive economic enterprises provided the well-being of the whole person is kept in mind and material welfare does not become an end in itself; provided one does not lose sight of the Quranic verse, ‘The other world is better for you than this one’. To forget the proper relation between the two worlds would itself be instrumental in bringing about disequilibrium and would be a kind of jihad in reverse.

All of those external forms of jihad would remain incomplete and in fact contribute to an excessive externalization of human being, if they were not complemented by the greater or inner jihad which man must carry out continuously within himself for the nobility of the human state resides in the constant tension between what we appear to be and what we really are and the need to transcend ourselves throughout this journey of earthly life in order to become what we ‘are’.

From the spiritual point of view all the ‘pillars’ of Islam can be seen as being related to jihad. The fundamental witnesses, ‘There is no divinity but Allah’ and ‘Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah’, through the utterance of which a person becomes a Muslim are not only statements about the Truth as seen in the Islamic perspective but also weapons for the practice of inner jihad. The very form of the first witness (La ilaha illa’ Lla-h in Arabic) when written in Arabic calligraphy is like a bent sword with which all otherness is removed from the Supreme Reality while all that is positive in manifestation is returned to that Reality. The second witness is the blinding assertion of the powerful and majestic descent of all that constitutes in a positive manner the cosmos, man and revelation from that Supreme Reality. To invoke the two witnesses in the form of the sacred language in which they were revealed is to practice the inner jihad and to bring about awareness of who we are, from whence we come and where is our ultimate abode.

The daily prayers (salat or namaz) which constitute the heart of the Islamic rites are again a never ending jihad which punctuate human existence in a continuous rhythm in conformity with the rhythm of the cosmos. To perform the prayers with regularity and concentration requires the constant exertion of our will and an unending battle and striving against forgetfulness, dissipation and laziness. It is itself a form of spiritual warfare.

Likewise, the fast of Ramadan in which one wears the armour of inner purity and detachment against the passions and temptations of the outside world requires an asceticism and inner discipline which cannot come about except through an inner holy war. Nor is the hajj to the centre of the Islamic world in Mecca possible without long preparation, effort, often suffering and endurance of hardship. It requires great effort and exertion so that the Prophet could say, ‘The hajj is the most excellent of all jihads“. Like the knight in quest of the Holy Grail, the pilgrim to the house of the Beloved must engage in a spiritual warfare whose end makes all sacrifice and all hardship pale into significance, for the hajj to the House of God implies for the person who practices the inner jihad encounter with the Master of the House who also resides at the centre of that other Ka’bah which is the heart.

Finally the giving of zakat or religious tax and khums is again a form of jihad not only in that in departing from one’s wealth man must fight against the coveteousness and greed of his carnal soul, but also in that through the payment of zakat and khums in its many forms man contributes to the establishment of economic justice in human society. Although jihad is not one of the ‘pillars of Islam’, it in a sense resides within all the other ‘pillars’. From the spiritual point of view in fact all of the ‘pillars’ can be seen in the light of an inner jihad which is essential to the life of man from the Islamic point of view and which does not oppose but complements contemplativity and the peace which result from the contemplation of the One.

The great stations of perfection in the spiritual life can also be seen in the light of the inner jihad. To become detached from the impurities of the world in order to repose in the purity of the Divine Presence requires an intense jihad for our soul has its roots sunk deeply into the transient world which the soul of fallen man mistakes for reality. To overcome the lethargy, passivity and indifference of the soul, qualities which have become second nature to man as a result of his forgetting who he is constitutes likewise a constant jihad. To pull the reigns of the soul from dissipating itself outwardly as a result of its centrifugal tendencies and to bring it back to the centre wherein resides Divine Peace and all the beauty which the soul seeks in vain in the domain of multiplicity is again an inner jihad. To melt the hardened heart into a flowing stream of love which would embrace the whole of creation in virtue of the love for God is to perform the alchemical process of solve et coagula inwardly through a ‘work’ which is none other than an inner struggle and battle against what the soul has become in order to transform it into that which it ‘is’ and has never ceased to be if only it were to become aware of its own nature. Finally, to realize that only the Absolute is absolute and that only the Self can ultimately utter ‘I’ is to perform the supreme jihad of awakening the soul from the dream of forgetfulness and enabling it to gain the supreme principal knowledge for the sake of which it was created. The inner jihad or warfare seen spiritually and esoterically can be considered therefore as the key for the understanding of the whole spiritual process, and the path for the realization of the One which lies at the heart of the Islamic message seen in its totality. The Islamic path towards perfection can be conceived in the light of the symbolism of the greater jihad to which the Prophet of Islam, who founded this path on earth, himself referred.

In the same way that with every breath the principle of life which functions in us irrespective of our will and as long as it is willed by Him who created us, exerts itself through jihad to instill life within our whole body, at every moment in our conscious life we should seek to perform jihad in not only establishing equilibrium in the world about us but also in awakening to that Divine Reality which is the very source of our consciousness. For the spiritual man, every breath is a reminder that he should continue the inner jihad until he awakens from all dreaming and until the very rhythm of his heart echoes that primordial sacred Name by which all things were made and through which all things return to their Origin. The Prophet said, ‘Man is asleep and when he dies he awakens’. Through inner jihad the spiritual man dies in this life in order to cease all dreaming, in order to awaken to that Reality which is the origin of all realities, in order to behold that Beauty of which all earthly beauty is but a pale reflection, in order to attain that Peace which all men seek but which can in fact be found only through the inner jihad.

Peace be upon you, Oh Successor of the Prophets,

Seperation from you is the worst of pains,

One name shall always live with me, and that name is Husayn.

Candle like I burn with the desire of being near to thee all the sooner; With my head on the enemy’s spear I’m bound for thy seat.

I asked thee to show me thyself when I reached the tryst with you on Mount Sinai, Thou art the fount of life from which thou quenchest my thirst.

On the edge of the Sea of existence I experienced the ascension of witnessing. The Mirror of the heart broke, but the image of the beloved remained, the true image of thee revealed the secret of He is Allah, The One.

وَنَحْنُ أَقْرَبُ إِلَيْهِ مِنْ حَبْلِ الْوَرِيدِ

[And We are nearer to him (the Believer) than his life-vein] (Surah 50 al-Qaf: Ayah 16)

Sometimes when life gets so down, the believer being the selfish being that it is, forgets the Rahma and Mercy which Allah our Creator has shown us throughout all our lives. Despite professing to be a Student of the Teachings of the Prophet (May Peace and Blessings be upon him) and Despite being a self-Professed Shia of the Ahlul Bayt (Alayhum as-Salaam) I constantly fall short of recognising the blessings of Allah (SWT) and in my greed and desire to understand his will constantly, I sometimes forget how he saved me from the darkness and from the path of ignorance. Today I began to recall a moment when this occured in my life recently, and how apparent the Mercy of God was…. I was just too blind to notice it.

It was the 6th of December, 2007…..

The Day before, I had undergone what I could realistically call “The Day of Hell” in my life.

(For those unfamiliar with this terminology, amongst my circle of friends both at High School and currently, we have all had one really crazily seemingly horrifying day in our lives, one in which for those without faith, suicide can often be contemplated, one of those days in which one thinks…..hmmm could anything get any worse. Note: I rejected this concept as being one which was crazy, but now after experiencing it….I fully believe in it!)

So, after surviving the Day of Hell with practically no sleep what so ever, I emerged into what I thought was going to be the Day of Hell two, I would be lying if I said my faith hadn’t been shaken ever so slightly by the Day of Hell but I am fallible and will unfortunately am prone to acting upon emotions often a time. Despite losing a degree of my faith or level of religiousity (often we Muslims refer to this as Imaan), I always knew deep down that my Lord would never burden me with a task that would be too much for me, and that all the great Prophets and Imams were all tested with the most trying of tasks in order to see how much their love for their lord could stand, what made us believers any different? All praise is due to him for never allowing to despair of his mercy.

So in my mind, I had lost everything that meant anything to me, well other than my relationship with the creator, and the Weather of the day reflected this. I found myself trapped in my room, staring at a blank computer screen with nothing to think about other than how hard life can be, how painful it can be and more importantly how difficult it must be for those without belief to survive in such a harsh world (note I know many will object that Religion serves as a crutch for us, but that is absolutely irrelevant to this story so I will ignore that).  The day was dark, windy, cold and pouring down with rain… perhaps the tears which I would never allow to slip from my eyes had manifested themselves into the skies I thought, and perhaps the enviroment surrounding me was nothing but the way I was feeling inside deep down.

Being the sort of person who cannot stand isolation normally and cares not for rotting away in silence, allowing my inner broken self to be tarnished or ravaged anymore by my own worries and regrets, I allowed myself to leave my room finally, in hopes that I could some how allow the ethos of my friends and family to cheer me up.

So I arranged to meet my bro at a popular yemeni cafe just off edgeware road, I remember the train was so late that day and caused me to be delayed even further (yeah it contributed even more to my misery!) so when I arrived to find that the storm had intensified and the rain was getting harder and faster, I found the storm raging within myself had also intensified, I just hoped I wouldn’t taken it out on anyone else. So I arrived and tried my best to put on a happy face for my bro, but I couldn’t, I just wasn’t in the mood.

Just when I began to accept my fate, and accept everything that had happened on the day of Hell (I didn’t miraculously turn happy; rather I began to be content with everything), I began to recite dhikr of praise in the inside of my lips and my heart, realising that there was a reason for everything, and that regret and despair helped with nothing. After finally allowing myself to stop thinking about it, and allowed myself to thank him for the bounties he had bestowed upon me, thats when his Mercy descended, and I felt the sakinah had descended upon me….. minutes later, I would find out, everything that happened to me, was about to be undone, literally.

I can’t stop loving Allah (SWT) for he first loved me.  

You illuminate my path and restore me to righteousness,

Oh Sign of Allah, how you point to the greatness of his magnanimity,

How you animate my faith and move me towards right guidance,

Were my world bereft of you it would surely collapse.

How could any face who has perceived your reality,

Not know the station of his Lord, or doubt a letter of his word,

How could they not help falling to their feet in absolute bliss,

Prostrating with the most adorned of worship,

Blinded with pure love.

The Literalist will say that love is a crime,

Love distracts and that love only burns in a fire of self-illusion,

Yet without fire there can be no light,

And my heart burns in the fire of your love.