Islam

Jum’ah

Friday is called Yawm al-Jum’ah in Arabic, meaning the Day of Assembly. On this day, Muslims pause from their work at mid-day to gather for congregational worship. The regular mid-day prayer on Friday is supplemented by a two-part sermon known as the khutbah, in the middle of which a time of personal prayer, or du’a, is encouraged. Read more about Jum’ah

Savior’s Day

Savior’s Day is the most important annual gathering and celebration of the Nation of Islam.

Arabic

Classical Arabic is the language of revelation in Islam as recorded in the Qur’an. Muslims consider every word of the Qur’an to be a direct utterance of God. The Arabic language itself is regarded as perfectly suited as the instrument for God’s communication to humanity because of its purity of sound and clarity of meaning. Thus translations of the Qur’an in other languages are regarded as “interpretations,” not the actual Qur’an.

Isra’

The “night journey” (isra’) and “ascent” (mi’raj) of the Prophet Muhammad refer to the Islamic tradition that the angel Gabriel escorted Muhammad from the Ka’bah of Makkah to the sanctuary of Jerusalem, where Muhammad led previous prophets in prayer and then ascended through the seven heavens. In the uppermost heaven, Muhammad was blessed with a vision of God. These events are remembered in the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem as well as in Persian miniature paintings.

al-Quds

Al-Quds means “the Holy” and is the Arabic name of the city of Jerusalem, the third holiest place on earth for Muslims, because of its association with Muhammad’s Night Journey. Jerusalem was the original direction of prayer for Muslims, before a later revelation changed the qiblah to Makkah.

Al-Amin, Jamil Abdullah

Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin was born Hubert G. Brown in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1943. In the mid-1960s, under the name H. Rap Brown, he became a civil rights activist. While in prison, he studied the tenets of Islam, changed his name and embraced the new religion in 1971. Today, Imam Al-Amin leads an estimated thirty affiliated communities in the United States and the Caribbean. An officer in several organizations and popular speaker in local and national gatherings, he has published Revolution By the Book: The Rap is Live and Women in Islam.

Islam

Islam in Arabic literally means “submitting” or “submission.” One who submits or surrenders his or her will to God is called a Muslim. While the whole of God’s creation is described as being inherently Muslim, human beings must choose whether to follow or to reject God’s will, as revealed in the Qur’an. What we now call the Islamic tradition was born in the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century. Today, there are more than one billion Muslims, living all over the world.

Muslim Youth of North America

The Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA) was started by Muslim high school students in 1985. It seeks to develop Muslim youth identity and to train future Muslim leaders. An affiliate of the Islamic Society of North America, MYNA holds national and regional conferences, seminars, retreats and outreach sessions for Muslim youth, and publishes the New Dawn magazine.

hijrah

The hijrah was the “emigration” of the Prophet Muhammad from Makkah to Madinah in 622 CE. When the Prophet and his followers were persecuted in Makkah, the tribes of Madinah promised to protect them and asked the Prophet to resolve disputes between them. The hijrah marks the founding of the first Islamic community under the leadership of the Prophet Muhammad, and thus the year 622 CE is the first year in the Islamic calendar.

Muhammad

The Prophet Muhammad, known as “the Seal of the Prophets,” was born in the city of Makkah on the Arabian peninsula in 570 C.E. At 40, he began to receive a series of revelations from God through the angel Gabriel. His small group of followers met with harsh persecution. In 622 C.E., the Prophet and his followers emigrated north from Makkah to Madinah to establish the first Islamic community. In 630, after a series of military battles and negotiations with enemies in Makkah, Muhammad returned to his city victorious. By his death in 632 CE, much of the Arabian peninsula had embraced Islam.... Read more about Muhammad

Umayyad

The Umayyad dynasty ruled the early Arab empire from 661-750 CE, and Spain from 756-1031 CE. From their capital in Damascus, the Umayyad caliphs sent Arab Muslim armies to conquer Syria, Egypt, Iraq and parts of Persia, Spain, and India. The Umayyads were forced to yield power to the new Abbasid dynasty in 750.

hafiz

A hafiz is a person who has memorized the entire Qur’an in Arabic. Learning the proper recitation of the Qur’an from memory is one of the primary goals of Islamic education for children, and the attainment of the status of a hafiz is a high honor.

minaret

The minaret is a tower often built to adorn a mosque, from which the call to prayer may be sounded.

Tablighi Jama’at

Tablighi Jama’at means literally, “the group that invites.” It is an apolitical missionary movement of Muslims, based in India, with a worldwide membership of millions. The movement sends small groups of Muslim men to visit inactive Muslims or inquirers to persuade them to conform their lives to Qur’an and Sunnah and to perform the prayers and other religious duties.

fiqh

Fiqh means “understanding” the Shariah, the law of God, as it is laid out in the Qur’an and Hadith and interpreted by community consensus and human reason. Four schools of legal interpretation (fiqh) are accepted in Sunni Islam: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali schools. The Shi’i tradition has developed its own schools of fiqh, the most prominent of which is the Ja’fari school.

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