ADEQUATE KNOWLEDGE
(Ilm) of Islam—which is to say, Heavenly Revelation—is, perhaps, the prime distinction of the successful dâî—and, no surprise, Allah commands that ilm should come first. Thus for actions and utterances to be right with Allah, they must be predicated on sound ilm. Allah states:
Know well, then, [O Prophet] that there is no God but the One God. So steadfastly seek much forgiveness for your sin, and for that of the believing men and the believing women. For Allah knows well, O people, your wakeful movement to and fro as you make your way in the world. And He knows well your abiding in private, at leisure and rest (Sûrat Muhammad, 47:19).
Arguing from the above ayah, Imam Bukhârî assigned in his sahi a section he named “The Chapter on the Principle that Ilm Precedes Action (Amal) and Utterances (Qawl).” In the ayah, Allah directs His Messenger to first acquire ilm—Know well, then, that there is no God but Allah—thereafter, he is to act upon it (So seek much forgiveness for your sin). This signifies two things: That ilm ranks higher than amal and qawl, and that ilm is a prerequisite for the soundness of the two.
So the ilm that is based on clear, authentic evidence (dalîl) from the Quran and the Sunnah is the sole guarantee of the dâî’s attainment to success. Allah instructs Prophet Muhammad (saw) to proclaim the nature of his mission to the world saying: Say to them [O Prophet]: This is my way, I call to Allah based on clear [revealed] proof—I and whoever follows me.…” (Sûrat Yûsuf, 12:108).
Da‘wah Without ‘Ilm Kills
It is reported that some Companions of the Prophet (saw) told a fellow Companion with a head-wound that, in spite of his wound, he still must perform wudû’ instead of tayammum (dry ablution). When the trusting Companion acted on their fatwa, ruling, his wound festered and he died from it. When the Prophet(saw) heard of the incident, he grew angry and exclaimed:
“They killed him!”
In the Quran, Allah commends those who have ilm and He enumerates their merits as follows: How can those who know be equal to those who do not know? (Sûrat Al-Zumar, 39:9); and: God will raise up, by many degrees, those of you who believe and those who have been given knowledge (Sûrat Al-Mujâdalah, 58:11).
In another place, Allah makes it clear that ilm is a guiding light for its bearer, both in the here-below and in the Hereafter: Is a dead person brought back to life by Us, and given light with which to walk among people, comparable to someone trapped in deep darkness who cannot escape? (Sûrat Al-
Anhâm, 6:122).
A Prophetic Summation
Paraphrasing this ayah, or sign-verse of the Quran, the Prophet (saw) said: “If Allah wishes someone good, He makes him versed in fiqh (that is, the applied understanding of His Revealed Law).” In another hadîth, the Prophet (saw) categorizes people in terms of their acquisition of ilm in three groups, and such is the last word on it:
The example of those who acquire and benefit from the ilm with which Allah sent me, and of those who insist on rejecting Allah’s Guidance, is that of a rain that falls on different kinds of land:
* One land is good. It accepts water and produces vegetation and grass in plenty.
* Another [land] is dry. It has a solid bed in which water pools so that people can utilize it.
* The third land is porous, neither retaining water nor producing vegetation (Bukhârî and Muslim). Source: aljumuah.com
Ask the Imam (Q&A)
Accepting donations from non-Muslims
Question 92445:C
an Muslims accept donations from non-Muslims to use in Islamic Cause?
Supervised by Shaykh
Muhammad Saalih al-Munajjid
Answer:
Praise be to Allah.
Imaam al-Bukhaari (may Allaah have mercy on him) gave one of the chapters in his Saheeh the title of Baab qabool al-hadiyah min al-mushrikeen (Chapter on accepting gifts from the polytheists), under which heading he listed a number of ahaadeeth indicating that this is permitted.
Al-Haafiz Ibn Hajar commented: On this topic, Abu Dawood and al-Tirmidhi narrated from Ayyaad ibn Himar [??] who said: I gave the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) a gift of a she-camel. He asked me, Have you become Muslim? I said, No. He said, I have been forbidden to accept the gifts of the mushrikeen. Then al-Haafiz (may Allaah have mercy on him) quoted some of the comments made by the scholars to reconcile the texts which indicate that such gifts should be refused with those which indicate that they should be accepted. (The scholars said that) gifts should be refused when the intention behind them is to win the Muslim over (by softening his heart towards them), and they should be accepted when by doing so there is the hope of befriending that person and opening his heart to Islam.
There is nothing wrong with accepting unsolicited gifts and donations from non-Muslims, and it is permissible to spend them on Islamic projects and in other ways.
But asking for donations from non-Muslims carries several risks, such as being humiliated in front of them or being controlled by them.
If there is no danger of such things happening, there is nothing wrong with asking. When he was still in Makkah, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) used to ask for help for the sake of dawah, without any humiliation involved, from some of the mushrikeen, such as his uncle Abu Taalib and others. There is no humiliation involved in putting out charity boxes or circulating flyers giving account numbers for donations, and so on. And Allaah knows best. (Source: IslamQA)
Source: islamqa.info/en/answers
Visionary and Father of Modern Islamic Banking Passes Away
BY: ASLAM ABDULLAH
Millions of people around the world benefit from interest-free baking. But, not many know that the scholar who made it possible within the context of the modern economic system left this world for his final abode on November 11, 2022 in San Jose, some 8,000 miles away from a small village in Northern India, where he was born in Gorakhpur in 1931.
Dr. Muhammad Nejatullah Siddiqi left a legacy that will continue to help countless access interest-free loans to achieve their dreams. Nejat means salvation. Dr. Nijatullah’s work proved salvation to people who could not advance their financial growth in the highly competitive world due to a lack of capital. Who would have thought that growing up in colonial India, Dr. Nejat would surpass the peak of academic excellence and achieve professorship in two of the world’s most prestigious universities, the Muslim University of Aligarh and Kind Abdul Aziz University, Saudi Arabia. Indeed, education in British India was reluctant to open the door for an aspiring Muslim student to help develop the Islamic Development Bank, which has financed thousands of development projects worldwide. But he did it with dedication, commitment, and desire to translate concepts into concrete programs to benefit people. He labored hard to author sixty-three significant books, hundreds of articles, and thousands of lectures worldwide while pioneering economics based on divine principles of justice and equity. His most widely read book is “Banking without interest,” published in more than 30 editions between 1973 and 2022.
His other works in English include Recent Theories of Profit: A Critical Examination (1971); Economic Enterprise in Islam (1972); Muslim Economic Thinking (1981); Banking Without Interest (1983); Issues in Islamic banking: selected papers (1983); Partnership and profit-sharing in Islamic law (1985); Insurance in an Islamic Economy (1985); Teaching Economics in Islamic Perspective (1996); Role of State in Islamic Economy (1996); Dialogue in Islamic Economics (2002) and Islam’s View on Property (1969). He received two major awards for his work: King Faisal International Prize for service to Islamic Studies and Shah Waliullah Award for his contribution to Islamic Economics.
Describing the future of Islamic Economics, he wrote in 2013 that the changing world would call for five strategic changes in approach: Family rather than the market as the starting point in economic analysis; Cooperation playing a more significant role in the economy, complementing competition; Debts playing a subsidiary rather than the dominant role in financial markets; Interest and interest-bearing instruments playing no part in money creation and monetary management; and, lastly, Maqasid based thinking supplanting analogical reasoning in Islamic economic jurisprudence. In what follows, I’d like to elaborate on these points to help you get in touch with these challenging propositions. Source: islamicity.org
