Cypress's blog

This may be an unusual post, but I ran into an interesting card game entitled Footsteps of the Prophet by Azazelo al-Qureshi. The game is about the succession to Muhammad - it looks interesting and is available in Arabic and English.

Time to add your favourite fiqh moments. I'll start:

Nizari Missionary Dr Abualy A. Aziz ("Missionary" is a traditional title: da'i) writes in his elucidation on the Nizari Ismaili Imami Shi'i tariqah that when one enters the prayer hall for services and greets the door-person with "Hai zindah!" (i.e. "he is alive", the Gujarati translation of "Allahu l-Hayyu", one of the 99 Beautiful Names), this is equivalent to having donated an elephant to charity.

I just love that someone somewhere once said, "Oh, but that is just like donating AN ELEPHANT to charity!"

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/05/03/71801.html

The Egyptian Ministry of Religious Affairs is spreading education on the issue of the hijaab with the goal of eradicating niqaab as un-Islamic.

Regardless of what their motives, the response by jerky scholars is soooo horrid.

“What’s happening in Egypt is the law of American city hall,” conservative Islamic scholar Sheikh Youssef al-Badry told Abu Dhabi’s The National newspaper. “It’s being translated and enforced on all aspects of life, the niqab is a must. They don’t want the niqab because they want to spread prostitution and illicit desires so that society will be disrupted.”

The government is trying to eliminate niqaab not because it's opressive, but because "[t]hey want to spread prostitution and illicit desires". Riiiight. I'm sure that's what the government is seeking.

Are tallitot just Judaeo-Israelite shmaghs?

And what would a One-Statist shmagh look like? Would it be a blue and white checked smagh? Or a black, white & green-striped tallit?

I've been meaning to post something on this topic because there is such little awareness of the diversity of the Ummah's beliefs.

As progressives, we cannot move forward without understanding our own faith's basics. Yet there is still a nearly universal sense of Sunnism being somehow basic or natural Islam.

I'm not trying to knock Sunnism, as the majority of Muslims are Sunni, including most of my IRL Muslim friends (O HAI FASHION MUJAHID + BÉBÉ!). However, when people explain the basics of Islam, they always say

"the Five Pillars"

A neat article on new mosque architecture. I particularly like this idea, which was sadly not actually built:

Back in Europe, a group of young Dutch architects led by Ergün Erkoçu wanted their concept for the Polder Mosque to achieve a similar level of cool. Riffing on the Dutch idea of seeking consensus, their design features not minarets but windmills. Inside, they planned space for a hammam (or bathhouse) and a row of shops. The mosque was never meant to exist but to generate discussion. Mission accomplished: elders have sniffed that it isn't traditional enough and Dutch-born Muslims eager to see the mosque's role expand beyond prayer have applauded it. [link mine]

I especially applaud the idea of a hammaam, I haven't been in a bathhouse since Japan and oh boy, do I miss it.

I would like to take a moment to alert our readers to the birth of Schenectady Marmoset ibn/bint FashionMujahid.

Please remember SM & FM in your prayers, as it was a very difficult birth and our dear FM will be out of commission for a while. Light a candle and say some prayers, people! A pregnancy has been successful and new life is in the world.

More food for thought. And the tummy.

Ismaili Cookbook: Secret Family Recipes of the Assassins describes the secret family culinary recipes of the Ismailis, an ancient group of Shiite Muslims otherwise known as the Assassins. These mouth-watering mysteries have been passed down generation after generation over the millennia. The cookbook documents their delicious secret culinary mysteries with over fifty recipes covering breakfast, vegetarian, poultry, beef, seafood, desserts and beverages.

For the enjoyment of all, I present an amazing Ukelele performance by Taimane Gardner, who has been playing the instrument since age 5.

Kudos to bOINGbOING.net, which all of you should be reading daily anyway. They have an Ukulele (and Disney) fetish, so you can find about a million neat performances on there along with their regularly-scheduled content on computers, technology, culture, environmentalism, etc.

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/20/taimane-plays-eleano.html

A pretty little ditty in Burushaski, a language isolate in Hunzai, Swat Valley, where the diverse cultures and faiths of the Burusho and their neighbours are about to be crushed under Talibani "Shari'ah" law with the agreement of the Pakistan government:
a spring song.

The Burusho, a people of extraordinary and fascinating origins, count among their members a sizable proportion of Ismailis of Nizari and independent belief as well as some more recent Ismaili-to-12er converts. And now the Taliban will rule them.

Way to go, Pakistan. Jackasses.