Getting Kids to Listen

Source: missionislam.com

One of the hardest parts of parenting is getting our kids to listen to us, and then, of course, getting them to do what we ask!

If you remember to use a few important skills this job will be much easier for you. Insha Allah

Think before you speak.

You tell your daughter it’s time to leave, then take twenty more minutes to get yourself ready. You ask your kids to clean up the family room, then allow the mess to remain for the night. You threaten to cancel your child’s trip if he speaks badly to you again. He does, but you don’t. All these scenes create kids who have “selective hearing.” Instead, take a minute to think before you issue a command, be specific, and your words will become more accurate and meaningful.

7 GUIDELINES ON HOW TO REACT TO CARTOONS OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD

Source: ilmfeed.com

By: Shaykh Yunus Haleebi & Yahya Adel Ibrahim

The following points are general guidelines for Muslims on how to initially deal with and immediately react to the depiction of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ in magazines.

Drone strikes: Obama’s torture technique?

Source: theconversation.com

By: Jeff Bachman

On November 24, two weeks before the Senate Intelligence Committee released its “torture report,” Reprieve, a UK-based human rights NGO, published the results of its latest investigation into President Obama’s drone strike program. While Obama was preparing for the inevitable release of the Senate’s report which provided the most extensive insight yet into the CIA’s use of torture during the Bush administration, Reprieve provided insights of its own into the Obama administration’s equally disturbing targeted drone assassination program.

The Significance of Emotions in Islam

By: Tarek Younis

Source: http://www.suhaibwebb.com/

Emotion: an often-neglected, yet significant component of our psychological configuration

Our psychological configuration consists of several components, all of which are interrelated:

1. The spiritual component, as we say the fitrah, which naturally predisposes us with an inclination towards God and good.
2. The cognitive component, which assumes all types of mental processes we can have.
3. The emotional component, which covers the range of emotions we experience, such as anger, sadness, fear, shame, and guilt.

The purpose of this article is to focus exclusively on the emotional component, as it is oft-neglected amongst Muslims; indeed our community habitually focuses on our spiritual and cognitive components instead. This imbalance is significant for two reasons:

Regarding Extremism

Source: ilmgate.org

By: Khalid Baig

“Thus have We Made of you an Ummah justly balanced” [Al-Baqara 2:143]

Ummatan Wasatan can be translated as the middle nation, the best nation, and an Ummah justly balanced. The Phrase captures the essence of Islam, which is to shun all excesses. At other places [e.g. Al-Ma’idah 5:12] the Qur’an refers to the path it shows at as Sawaa as-Sabil. Abdullah Yusuf Ali explains: “The Arabic word sawaa signifies smoothness as opposed to roughness; symmetry as opposed to want of plan; equality or proportion as opposed to want of design; rectitude as opposed to crookedness; a mean as opposed to extremes; and fitness for the object held in view as opposed to faultiness.”

Extremism is a product of ignorance. Given two extreme points on a straight line, anyone can point out where the middle point lies. But a person that cannot see the entire line will also miss the middle point. He may be sitting on an extreme edge, yet congratulate himself for being in the middle.

Movie: City Of Life (Full Video)

 A privileged young male Arab at odds with his cultural identity and his less fortunate street smart friend; a disillusioned Indian taxi driver who bears an uncanny resemblance to a famous Bollywood star; and a former Romanian ballet dancer now working as a flight attendant and searching for love and companionship … these individuals all live in Dubai and their lives are about to collide for better or for worse in a city where ambition, growth and opportunity are encouraged and dreams can still manifest. “City of Life” is an urban drama that tracks the various intersections of a multi-ethnic cast, examining how random interactions and their consequences can irrevocably impact another’s life. As the name suggests, City of Life’s inordinately humane kaleidoscope of converging experiences introduces a city that is in itself a living pulsating character. “City of Life” ultimately reveals how unexpected tragedy and loss can lead to hope and profound transformation as it explores and exposes the complex network that exists in an emerging multi cultural society’s race, ethnicity and class divide. Written by Tanya Wagner.

Omar Suleiman: Is Life Fair? What is the Reason to Live? (Video)

 877-Why-Islam presents Sh. Omar Suleiman who asks important questions about our goal in life. Is the enjoyment of life the ultimate goal worth living for? Can a blind and homeless individual be more content than a famous actor? Explore why individuals display such varying levels of contentment.
More lectures…

How to Sit with Painful Emotions

Source: psychcentral.com

By: Margarita Tartakovsky

Feeling painful emotions, not surprisingly, can be painful. This is why so many of us don’t do it. Instead, we ignore our emotions, or dismiss them. We try to numb the pain with a glass of wine or three. We isolate ourselves. We cut or burn ourselves, or engage in other kinds of self-harm.

Basically, we turn to anything that’ll help us get rid of our feelings.“As humans, we do everything we can do to reduce our suffering and to avoid pain — emotional or physical. So it is difficult to accept the pain [of our emotions] and not try to do anything to fight it,” said Sheri Van Dijk, MSW, a psychotherapist in Sharon, Ontario, Canada.

What’s wrong with racism?

By: Oyon Ajmain

The Ummah and humanity nowadays is so diverse that almost every other friend an individual has is of a different race to himself. Me personally, I have a mix of friends who are black, white, asian, arab etc and sometimes when I hang out with them they make harmless jokes which borderline racism.