Transience

Mufti Mustafa Ceric (as usual I came in late, and I took less notes) The Delicate Balance 1. There must be balance between reformation and conformation. Truth and justice, faith and good deeds, tasdiq and tajdid. No tajdid without tasdiq. 2. When you fly in an airplane, you'd want a pilot whom you do not have to know who he is, but you can trust in him. 3. Ikhtiar - freedom (of religion) to choose what's right, but not wrong. 4. The advent of Islam brings a revolution in mankind. "laa ikraaha fid din". 5. Prophet's last sermon: - no superiority of an Arab over non-Arab except by your moral credibility -no racial discrimination -we are born free with no sins This is Islam's breakthrough. 6. We have to protect 5 values of an individual, regardless of who he is: -an-nafs, life -ad-din, religion -freedom al-mal, property -dignity 7. We need to know how to earn a living and how to live. 8. When there is no water, a ship does not move, bu...

Nouman Ali Khan I first saw this guy from this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAYtChtd99s because a friend suggested it to me, then I watched some of his videos on quran weekly, notably this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftp2qRg2xz4 I guess with his humor in his presentations, a lot of people I know actually like him. This is his first year at RIS, and honestly, I'd rather listen to him on youtube than actually pay an RIS ticket to come and watch him because I think he does better elaborations on his own youtube shows, considering RIS has a time constraint for every speaker. Nouman's specialty is in the Arabic language, and in his speeches he actually focuses more on transcribing the ayaats compared to other speakers. Points: 1. Relating the word "umm", mother, and "ummah", as well as ummatan wahidatan. A famous "umm" in the Quran is Mary, and she was the divinely chosen mother whose pregnancy is miraculously intervened. As for...

RIS : Reviving Islamic Spirit site here I didn't attend all talks or stayed attentive in all of them, but here are some of the notes. 12/21/12 Tariq Ramadan  (not sure what his speech is entitled, I came in about halfway) Points: 1. Check our intentions. Do we want to remove power to gain power or because we truly believe in restoring justice ? 2. Stop being emotional and be aware of complexities, in reference to the Arab Spring and Palestine. 3. We have an intellectual role to play by: -Understanding the situation by reading from reliable sources so that we are informed and equipped. eg: There is no social justice without education, without educating women, it is not the head scarfs that causes social injustice. -As a democratic country, we have to be democratic in our own country and as well as in dealing with other countries as well. If we stand for democracy and liberty, than we can't just sit around while in other countries injustice is rife, eg...