غصن الزيتون

“Hey! What happened to your post about…?!“

Yup. They’re gone.

You may have noticed that I have “unpublished” some of my blog entries. I have gone through my posts and, indeed, removed the ones I felt didn’t contribute to the overall good of humanity. If it didn’t inspire learning, or unity between men, or even if it did and a resulting evil was greater than that, I removed them in spite of the crazy amount of hits they were getting.

It is now the beginning of Ramadan 2007 and I hope this gesture will contribute even a little bit towards mutual respect, understanding and peace.

May God guide us all to what pleases Him and may He unite us upon the Truth. Amin.

The Prophetic Advice to Desist from Ethiopia

دَعُوا الْحَبَشَةَ مَا وَدَعُوكُم، وَاتْرُكُوا التّرْكَ مَا تَرَكُوكُم
“Leave the Ethiopians so long as they leave you, and desist from the Turkic nations, so long as they desist from you.”
[Abû Dâwud's Sunan, an-Nasâ'î's Sunan, and others]

Failure to follow the aforementioned advice of the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم) has had devestating consequences in Islamic history. If one observes the map of largely Muslim North Africa, one can’t help but notice that in a solid belt of Muslim nations one finds the Christian nation of Ethiopia sticking out like a sore thumb. This is because the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula remembered well the advice of their resident and Prophet who had shown great tolerance and respect for the Christians of Ethiopia, then called Abyssinia or “Habasha” in Arabic.

PC user no more…

I have officially abandoned my trusty HP laptop for a MacBook Pro. Millions of you will cry, “BLASPHEMER!” Yet, I have some reasons I will list here to justify my decision.

Philemon 1:20 - Dogmatic Alterations in the New Testament

Often times readers of the Bible encounter difficult passages and are consoled that the actual Greek will rectify and allay any concerns that might arise from that. However, when comparing the Westcott-Hort, Textus Receptus and Byzantine manuscripts we find some inconsistencies that appear to be fueled by an attempt to make the text adhere to certain Christian doctrines.

Little know facts from al-Dhahabî’s Sîyar

Sîyar A`lâm an-Nubalâ’ penned by al-Dhahabî is a magnum opus of biographical works. One will find many details about great notables in Islamic history that are hardly known.

Ibn `Arabi’s Classifications of Tawhîd

It is interesting to note that Ibn Taymîyyah’s explanation of Tawhîd (Islamic monotheism) by designating 3 categories is not exclusive to him. Below are excerpts from Muhyî ad-Dîn ibn `Arabî’s work of Sufi enlightenment entitled al-Futûhât al-Makkîyyah.

Tribute to Tolkien: Postulating a Proto-Semitic Language

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, popularly known simply as J.R.R. Tolkien, created the languages of Quenya and Sindarin for his mythical realm of Middle-earth. Quenya was largely based on Finnish, Latin and Greek while Sindarin was based on Brythonic and Welsh linguistics and phonology. Aside from these, there were also other languages which were created for the Lord of the Rings epic.

I have been writing a work of fiction which draws greatly from my interest in the language, religion and history of the Semitic tradition. Thus, in what could be considered my encomium to Tolkien, I have engaged in somewhat of an experiment in Semitic philology and attempted to create a primordial Proto-Semitic language based upon carefully assumed etymon’s of early Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac and Nabataean.

Bernard Lewis’ “Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Inquiry”

Below are some excerpts from Bernard Lewis’ Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Inquiry which give some interesting perspectives on slavery in Islam. Bear in mind Bernard Lewis is a notorious historian and scholar of modern Western Orientalism and he is far from being an Islamophile.

`Abdul Qâdir al-Jîlânî’s Censure of Theological Dialectics

Shaykh `Abdul Qâdir al-Jîlânî has for centuries been iconic of Sufism and considered its most exemplary standard of Sufi saints. In our times Sufism has become nearly synonymous with Ash`arism, however, what many do not know is that this is a purely modern phenomenon which resulted from the political alliances made between the Ash`arîs and successive Muslim Empires. This culminated with the Ottomans who aggressively routed out their rivals, the Hanbalîs, from many parts of Iraq, Syria and Egypt where they had been a formidable force of scholarship for hundreds of years. `Abdul Qâdir, endearingly called “Ghawth al-A`zam“, was one such monolithic scholar in the Hanbalite tradition. The greatest irony is that he stood diametrically opposed to everything most of his modern day followers espouse. He was a bitter opponent of Ash`arism and the Ash`arî practice of `Ilm al-Kalâm, or Theological Dialectics.

Matthew 27:46 - “My God, My God….huh?”

“And about the Ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?“
[Matthew 27:46, New King James Version]

I’ve encountered some interesting interpretations of this verse from various Christian Syriacists over the years. What follows are two of their interpretations and my responses.