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Never Be The Aggressor Study Jujitsu (Video)

American Submitter: The Key To Knowledge (Audio Podcast)

Source: americansubmitter.org

The Wikipedia entry of Menlo Park, California literally begins with the words “Menlo Park is an affluent suburb”. Apparently 21% of Menlo Park residents work at Facebook. In any case, it’s still in many ways a typical nice and quiet suburb of America. I know this because I’ve been there. I went there to visit my friend Scott.

Scott grew up in Menlo Park and he and I currently study at an Islamic liberal arts college in Berkeley, California called Zaytuna College. In this episode we get to hear about his life, his existential struggles,  and the journey which eventually led him to Islam and now to Zaytuna College.

Why does Allah allow suffering and evil in the world?

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Source: islamonline.net

By: Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi

Indeed Allah is All-Powerful (Al-`Aziz) and He is able to do all things (Allahu ‘ala kuli shayin qadir). The Quran has mentioned this hundreds of times. It is also mentioned in the Quran that Allah is the Creator and He is the Best Creator. Glory be to Allah, the best Creator. (Al-Mu’minoon: 14)
But then the question comes why do pain and sufferings exist in the world. We find sickness, old age and death. We see things that are ugly, people who are insane and foolish. There are storms, earthquakes, floods, draught and famine. We also see people commit sins, show disloyalty, unfaithfulness, greed and insincerity. We see people commit rapes, murders; they fight and make wars. We know all these and many more problems. There are evils caused by human beings and there are natural disasters. There are suffering for individuals and there are those that involve a large number of people.

But we also know that this is not the whole story. Besides all these negative things, we also see beauty, health, prosperity, life, birth, wisdom, intelligence, growth and progress. We also see goodness among people, faith, sincerity, charity, love and the spirit of sacrifice. We also see a lot of virtue and piety. It is wrong to see one side of the coin and not to see the other side. Any philosophy that concentrates on one aspect of the creation and denies or ignores the other side is partially true and partial truths are no truth at all.

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Steps to Love and Romance in Islam

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Source: perfectmuslimwedding.com

By: Shaikh Abdul Rahman Murphy

  1. There are 4 types of maturity: Financial, Spiritual, Physical, and Emotional. For most people they are lacking 2 of the 4.
  2. Emotional maturity is very important. How will you deal with situation if you lose job, wife can’t get pregnant, how you handle in-laws, etc. Ask yourself “Am I emotionally mature to live with someone who has different likes/dislikes?”
  3. You don’t have the right to judge without having communicated.
  4. Married life is about Mawada and Rahma (Mercy).
  5. If there is physical or verbal abuse, see a counselor.
  6. In a Muslim home there needs to be an attitude of gratitude. Think what your spouse and kids are doing, not what they are not doing. Kids thank parents. Parents thank kids.
  7. Romance between spouses is religious. The Prophet (SAW) said in a Hadith when asked who he loved most, it was Aisha (RA). When asked from men, then, “her father” reference still being her. He (SAW) had a nickname for her “Aish.” Find out what your spouse’s likes and dislikes are. Flowers and chocolates may work, but may not.
  8. Compromise is the mortar of marriage. It holds the bricks together and makes it strong. Prophet (SAW) gave in to his wives on small wishes, but never sacrificed on principles.
  9. Number one cause of divorce in the US is money. This is why Financial maturity is important.
  10. Part of the rizk (sustenance) you have been given is your health. That is physical, mental, and spiritual. You can’t neglect any of them.
  11. When you get angry, follow the Hadith, “The strong one is who controls himself in anger.” This requires self-control and discipline.  Make wudu as water cools the fire that rages from anger.
  12.  Put Allah back in the equation. When we look at a relationship we only think of 2 people.  Don’t treat people the way they are meant to be treated. Ask yourself how are my prayers? Those who pray together, stay together.
  13. Make dua like you mean it.

Other things a husband can do to do to keep the spark of love alive from Sh. Faraz Ibn Adam:

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Look What You’ve Built! America’s First Accredited Muslim College (Video)

Now There’s an Academic Address for Islam in America. Together, Let’s Make it Permanent, http://www.zaytuna.edu 

Bob Proctor: Learn the Law of Attraction (Video)

Muslims in England and Wales doubled in 10 years

www.larsorges.de

Source: theguardian.com

By: Aisha Gani

The Muslim population of England and Wales is growing faster than the overall population, with a higher proportion of children and a lower ratio of elderly people, according to an analysis of official data.

One in three Muslims is under 15, compared with fewer than one in five overall. There are also fewer elderly Muslims, with 4% aged over 65, compared with 16% of the overall population.

In 2011, 2.71 million Muslims lived in England and Wales, compared with 1.55 million in 2001. There were also 77,000 Muslims in Scotland and 3,800 in Northern Ireland.

The Muslim Council of Britain’s (MCB) study of data from the 2011 census found that Muslims are still a small minority of the overall population – one in 20. This contrasts with popular perceptions held by Britons, who overstate the proportion of Muslims in the country by a factor of four, according to a recent survey by Ipsos Mori.

Half the Muslims in England and Wales were born there and almost three-quarters (73%) identify themselves as British. Two-thirds of Muslims are ethnically Asian and 8% are white.

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Study: humans may cause mass extinction in oceans

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Source: informationclearinghouse.info

By: Carl Zimmer

A team of scientists, in a groundbreaking analysis of data from hundreds of sources, has concluded that humans are on the verge of causing unprecedented damage to the oceans and the animals living in them.

“We may be sitting on a precipice of a major extinction event,” said Douglas J. McCauley, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an author of the new research, which was published on Thursday in the journal Science.

But there is still time to avert catastrophe, Dr. McCauley and his colleagues also found. Compared with the continents, the oceans are mostly intact, still wild enough to bounce back to ecological health.

“We’re lucky in many ways,” said Malin L. Pinsky, a marine biologist at Rutgers University and another author of the new report. “The impacts are accelerating, but they’re not so bad we can’t reverse them.”

Scientific assessments of the oceans’ health are dogged by uncertainty: It’s much harder for researchers to judge the well-being of a species living underwater, over thousands of miles, than to track the health of a species on land. And changes that scientists observe in particular ocean ecosystems may not reflect trends across the planet.

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Study: U.S. regime has killed 20-30 million people since World War Two

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Source: countercurrents.org
By: James A. Lucas

After the catastrophic attacks of September 11 2001 monumental sorrow and a feeling of desperate and understandable anger began to permeate the American psyche. A few people at that time attempted to promote a balanced perspective by pointing out that the United States had also been responsible for causing those same feelings in people in other nations, but they produced hardly a ripple. Although Americans understand in the abstract the wisdom of people around the world empathizing with the suffering of one another, such a reminder of wrongs committed by our nation got little hearing and was soon overshadowed by an accelerated “war on terrorism.”

But we must continue our efforts to develop understanding and compassion in the world. Hopefully, this article will assist in doing that by addressing the question “How many September 11ths has the United States caused in other nations since WWII?” This theme is developed in this report which contains an estimated numbers of such deaths in 37 nations as well as brief explanations of why the U.S. is considered culpable.

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