Date: June 18, 2015
Fasting is a holy act of prayer and sacrifice for the sake of Allah and your sins will be forgiven by Allah. During the holy month of Ramadan, an Islam must abstain from food, drinks, life pleasures, intercourse, smoking and other sins. Islam must abstain from food and drinks before the break of the dawn till sunset. During Ramadan month, every sane and able Muslim should fast. In addition, for getting eligibility for fasting he or she must attain the age of puberty and maturity. Fasting should start by taking the sahri. Sahri is the food or drink you take in anticipation of the next day’s fasting. So you must take sahri before the Subah Sadiq. If you missed the sahri, you must skip fasting for the day. As soon as the sun set in the evening, you must break the fast by having dates and water. You should break the fasting before the Magrib prayers. Things that break fasting * Eating and drinking during the fasting time. * Smoking. * Pouring oil into ears. * Swallowing pebble, stone, paper etc. * Saliva mingled with blood. * Applying medicine drops in nostrils. * Masturbation. * Sexual intercourse. Things that do not break fasting * Smell perfume, using surma in the eyes and applying oil to the hair. * Inhaling a fly without one’s intention. * To swallow saliva. * Undergoing for a blood test. * To take bath during fasting time. * To pour water into ear unknowingly.
"The best of what a man leaves behind are three: a righteous child who supplicates for him, ongoing charity the reward of which reaches him, and knowledge that is acted upon after him."
Sunan Ibn Mājah
"Every day two angels come down from Heaven and one of them says, 'O Allah! Compensate every person who spends in Your Cause,' and the other (angel) says, 'O Allah! Destroy every miser.'"
Sahih Bukhari
The Initiative on Islam and Medicine (II&M)(https://www.medicineandislam.org/overview/), located in Brookfield, Wisconsin, conducts research on Islam and Biomedicine. Their research programs are focused on the theological, social, and biomedical aspects of religion and medicine and are meant to benefit the health of American Muslims and also in the development of an academic, multidisciplinary field of Islamic Bioethics. They support and provide scholarships to healthcare providers and religious leaders and act as a platform for impactful research and tailored education. Additionally, II&M provides educational opportunities, workshops, consultations, courses and certifications, medical student internships, and hosts events that facilitate the participation of medical and social scientists, Islamic studies experts, and Islamic scholars. After extensive pilot testing and methodical curation, as claimed by II&M, they have announced the launch of a self-paced, multi-modal course named “An Introduction to the Field of Islamic Bioethics”(https://www.medicineandislam.org/bioethics-course/). This course is said to benefit Muslim clinicians, healthcare practitioners, medical students and trainees, chaplains, religious leaders, bioethicists, and patients and is based on II&M’s principles of data-driven, theologically appropriate, and research-tested intellectual resources to engage with contemporary healthcare. The course will introduce learners to: * Critical concepts in Islamic theology and law that undergird normative ethical frameworks * Scholarly discussions regarding the methods, content, and scope of Islamic bioethics and * Extant normative rulings and discursive products of applied Islamic bioethics relate to end-of-life care, organ donation, and reproductive health. This course is based on adult learning theory and is a 10-module course that runs in 4-months cohorts. It involves: * Specially curated lectures and readings that allow for active learning as participants engage with the source material of Islamic bioethics, * Summative lectures that hit on the key points from the material with added experiential commentary and explanation from a practicing clinician, clinical ethicist, health policy consultant, and scholar * Short quick-hitting reflection questions and quizzes that allow for the learning to be concretized Additionally, the course yields 16.5 CME and MOC credits for physicians. At the completion of the course, participants will be able to: * Describe the sources of Islamic morality * Identify the producers, consumers, and the discursive material of Islamic bioethics * Describe the contentions around what constitutes the "Islamic" in Islamic bioethics * Apply critical analysis skills to decipher gaps in the Islamic bioethics discourse * Delineate the major Islamic juridical views on end-of-life healthcare, organ donation, and reproductive health Register now(https://www.medicineandislam.org/bioethics-course/) for the course at II&M’s website and avail of the introductory 50% discount.
Read MoreIt is allowed to listen to the Quran on radio or television, mp3 at your convenient times. Allah said that whenever the Quran is recited, you must listen to it attentively and be silent so that He may have mercy upon you (Quran, Al-A'raf, 7:204). You can listen to it while you are driving or working in the kitchen and so on. It is neither encouraging nor respectful to the Quran, to say like which verse is this, which Surah is this, what is he saying etc. while listening to the Quran. Every Muslim should learn and listen to Quran with devotion and love to receive the pleasure of Allah, the Exalted.
Read MoreOne of the most commented verses in Quran is the “Verse of Light” (24th Surah - An-Nur). The Surah unveils how Allah is the light of heaven and earth. Allah says the so called light in him is a niche and within which is a candle. The candle is placed in a glass which twinkles like a star in the sky. Olive tree’s oil from the blessed land of Quds is used for fuel to light the candle. This is very bright itself even without fire. With this, Allah guides to his light whomsoever he wills. There are a number of commentaries on this verse and the most famous comment is that this verse is a parable of faith. Here the candle refers to the light of Iman. The ultimate message of this Surah is that light of Iman and how to attain it. Verse 2 incorporates the topic of chastity and modesty and it talks about the punishment of fornication. Verse 27 is all about the modesty of seeking permission while entering to someone’s house. Verse 30 and 31 are the command of Allah for the believing men and women to lower their gazes and guard their chastity. Verse 58 speaks about the need to ask permission to enter parent’s room at special times by a person under the age of maturity. In short, all the verses talks about modesty. If a person preserves their modesty and stays away from anything that diminishes this, they preserve the light of Allah which He places in the hearts of the believers. Allah combines between light, modesty which means that if anyone preserves modesty, there will be blessed light, and if the modesty lacks, the light becomes dimmer.
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