iSawab is an app that encourages you to do more good deeds

In April the creator of this app asked me if I could mention it on QuranClub. At first I thought QuranClub wouldn't be the right place. I had plans for a general-topics Islamic site that I thought would be a better home for it, but that plan is still in my head and nowhere else. For that reason, and since the app is about the Quranic concept of thawab (God's rewards for good deeds), I finally decided to write about the app here.

That app uses a points system to help you keep track of the reward-generating activities you do, such as Quran reading, reciting adhkaar, or visiting a sick person, and it also allows you to set goals and track your progress toward them. From the app's website:

iSawab is a culmination of years of thought regarding a motivation tool that will challenge and help today’s technology-minded person to practice his Islamic faith. Most people understand targets and have at some time determined what it would take to get there.

The iSawab App allows you to track the accumulation of your Sawab through an innovative points system against a self-imposed target. You can track your progress everyday, and look at increasing your reward through more opportunities than you would normally think about. Be aware of all the Sawab-bearing activities, Most of us need the reminder, and this app will do that for you.

The site answers a number of potential questions:

How does one use this App?

The app's concept is simple. Set yourself a target level (points) for a certain period of time, and track your deeds to meet the target. Points are assigned for each act, and you're able to track your performance on a daily basis.

How are the points awarded?

While the relative merits of each deed is with Allah, and Allah alone, this system tries to assign higher points for relatively more meritorious acts. You can set your own points per activity to challenge yourself to meet a particular target.

I haven't been able to test the app myself. If it succeeds in encouraging one to do more reward-bearing activities, I would say it is very much worth a try.

Visit the Internet Islamic Art Database, a QuranClub project

The Internet Islamic Art Database (IIADB.com) is a website where you can find Islamic posters, photos, illustrations, and other graphics. You can also upload your own and other people's graphics at the Submit Artwork page.

The goal of this project is to make it easier for people to find high quality Islamic art on the internet by providing a central location where Islamic art is presented and categorized, and to provide exposure for the works of Muslim artists, photographers, and illustrators.

A Qur'aanic Odyssey

Umm Muhemmed is an American born development economist who recently began her own hifdh study. Earlier this month, Greenbird Books published her fiction A Qur'aanic Odyssey, a promising book that portrays a knowledge-seeking and Quran-loving Muslim family's journey through the Quran.

We asked Umm Muhemmed a number of questions about herself and her book. Her interesting and informative answers are below:

What’s the book about, and who’s it for?

The narrative is based on Ibrahim aged five, and Amna aged two, who embark on a journey of hifdh al Qur’aan with their mother Khadija and father Abdurrahman. This story emphasizes love for the Quran in a thoughtful manner. Through the eyes and hearts of this young family, we learn about courage and patience. We learn to look inwards and reflect on the journey ahead.  A Qur’aanic Odyssey is for all who are interested, including parents who coach their children in learning and memorizing Quran or more general Quranic study. I also hope to reach out to non-Muslims, especially any who may be linked to cross-cultural families, trying to navigate and understand some of the intricacies of the ‘culture’ of Islam, especially with regard to the Quran. In addition, the text may be used in a classroom environment including by teachers, of any faith or conviction, who seek to present Islam and more specifically the Quran in a positive ‘real life,’ ‘Western’ environment. Through storytelling, I aspire to demonstrate that the Quran and Islam may be complementary to the ‘West’.

Could you tell us a little about yourself?

We all wear many hats. I feel very fortunate to have so many diverse roles: as mother, wife, daughter, sister, development economist, author, educator, and, perhaps most importantly, student. In all of these roles, I seek to learn as well as to live Islam in an increasingly true and compassionate way. A Qur'aanic Odyssey is a new outlet for me. It is very different from the academic writing that has occupied my work over the last decade, and yet the process of conceiving and writing the book has taught me endless lessons about hifdh, motherhood, the Quran in general, and of course, the process of writing.

Why did you write this story?

The book arose in part as a response to a superhero figure that emerged in my son’s life, through no introduction of mine, I might add. I was amazed how such figures completely mesmerized my son and so many of his peers. As we had already started on our own hifdh journey, I was curious how I might attract the same interest, harness the same energy for our Quran lessons. Initially, I sought to create a Quran/hifdh game, but my computer programming skills were inadequate. Then, I thought I might simply create a type of Quranic superhero for him, almost in the style of a comic book. As I wrote, however, I found myself developing a series of characters to whom he could relate directly, and who could potentially encourage him on his own hifdh journey, simply by their real life example. I also sought to reach out to many adults who had little or no experience with hifdh and Quran and found that the children’s voices could be straightforward, thoughtful, non-threatening and ultimately very effective in communicating a message.

I have also been inspired by my teachers, especially Hafidha Rayhaanah Omar, founder of Fee Qalbee, who has shared countless child-friendly Quran activities. My own two young children are the source of endless inspiration, along with nieces and nephews. The author of ‘A Muslim Princess,’ Umm Aasiyah Muhammad, also deserves special mention here, both as an author and as the parent of an aspiring hafidha.

With what do you want readers to walk away?

Two main messages. Hifdh may be fun (although it is hard work). Working on hifdh, at home, has the potential to be extremely rewarding for the whole family.  

How might parents/teachers/students find this book useful when reading to children?

Almost every chapter showcases at least one hifdh activity: namely it demonstrates how Ibrahim, Amna and Khadija are learning one of the surahs from Juz Amma. In this regard, parents (and other teachers as well) should inshaa Allah gain insights about how to approach surahs in a fun, loving and thoughtful way. In addition, the book includes ‘hifdh teaching notes’ (immediately following each chapter) which endeavour to go one step further in providing recommendations for how to generate a positive and productive response from our little ones. At the same time, it is not an in depth novel. Each chapter is short, almost like a skit, and is intended to highlight life lessons amidst Quran learning.  The text may be read to children, by children, and/or solely by adults. It is intended to be interactive inshaa Allah.

What’s next for you?

As a person of faith, I don’t think that we fully choose our destinies. I am busy working on hifdh, coaching our children (in Quran and life, in general), writing a sequel to A Qur’aanic Odyssey, and keeping a number of other projects afloat, but one never fully knows what Allah SWT has in store for us. I try to keep a certain pace and focus, while at the same time, being open to the endless opportunities of learning and teaching that come our way inshaa Allah.

What specific advice do you have to the members of Quran Club?

I am in no position to hand out advice. Suffice it to say, as a revert, who embraced Islam as an adult, I feel very fortunate to have been exposed to hifdh and to have been blessed with the opportunity to share the transformative experience through A Qur’aanic Odyssey.

A Qur’aanic Odyssey by Umm Muhemmed, published by Greenbird Books, is available via Amazon.com.

Check out the book's website at: http://aquraanicodyssey.wordpress.com/

Arrogance, blood and brains: How God prevents certain people from seeing His Signs

I will avert from My Signs those who consider themselves superior without any right, and if they see every Sign they will not believe in it, and if they see the path of reason they will not follow it, and if they see the path of error they will follow it; that is because they denied Our Signs and were oblivious of them. [7:146]

How does God accomplish this—how does He avert arrogant people from His signs? Human biology could be one of His methods.

Strong emotions blind rationality. A few weeks ago I read about a study in which the researchers found that when humans try to think of an idea that they strongly disagree with, their brains receive less blood where it matters, and this strongly diminishes their ability to think about the idea.

When humans are arrogant, and dislike the idea of God and that of submitting to Him, this dislike manifests itself in their bodies by causing a blood famine in their brains whenever they are reminded of God. Instead of thinking of God rationally, they fall into a state of great discomfort that blinds them, as God Himself describes it:

Thus whoever God wants to guide, He makes his chest relax and expand, ready to accept submission, and whoever He wants to render lost, He makes his chest narrow and distressed as if he is climbing into the sky... [6:125]

God has designed humans in a way that evil, arrogant people are prevented by their own bodies from appreciating God's existence. God put His will into the blueprint of all humans, and whenever humans deserve to be rendered lost, their bodies and minds, being extensions of God's will, make sure that it happens.

The more arrogant a person becomes, the harder it becomes for them to appreciate God's Signs, possibly due to a stronger emotional response against God, and thus a greater lack of blood in their brains when facing one of God's Signs. The classic example of this is the powerful Egyptian king Fir'aun, who refused to believe any of the miracles that Moses showed him...until the moment he lost all of his power. When God destroyed his ego, and his arrogance vanished, he could then see the truth:

So We brought the Children of Israel across the sea. Fir'aun and his troops pursued them arrogantly and aggressively. When he was about to drown, [Fir'aun] exclaimed, ‘I believe that there is no deity save Him in whom the Children of Israel believe, and I am of those who surrender themselves to Him!’

Only now … when you have always been a rebel and a wrongdoer? [10:90-91]

When God wants to create Earth from scratch, He first creates the Big Bang

God says in the Quran:

He is the one who created the skies and the Earth... [57:4]

When God says He created Earth, some people think it means He picked up a handful of gravel and put them into a ball that became Earth. This is a very simpleminded way of understanding God's words; there is a much more elegant explanation.

Atheism's favorite personality Carl Sagan says:

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

Atheists have been repeating the above statement for years, never realizing that it gets dangerously close to providing an explanation for God's way of creating things, an explanation that's perfectly consistent with science, and that defeats a lot of atheism's arguments against religion.

To mirror Sagan's saying:

When God wants to create Earth from scratch, He first creates the Big Bang

...in a way that results in one particular planet with Earth's life-supporting properties to come into existence, to circle around a star with the Sun's properties, and to be surrounded by the rest of the astronomical bodies in the Solar System and beyond.

God planned the creation of today's Earth millions, maybe billions, of years ago, before the universe even existed. He calculated the laws of physics necessary for Earth to exist, and with the Big Bang He put His plans into motion, which ultimately led to the creation of the Earth, with the exact location in the universe, and the exact physical properties, that He planned for it from before the Big Bang.

Creating Earth in this indirect manner requires vastly more knowledge, precision, elegance, and top-notch engineering than the typical boring religious explanation suggests.

This is always how God works. God is elegant and scientific—and often beyond the intelligence of humans, especially those who think science and God are opposed.

This post does not explain how God created the Big Bang. Either science will discover more about how God did it (the same way it has discovered some of the secrets of how God set up His system for generating rain on Earth), or it is not possible to figure out from inside the universe what went on outside of it.

The Islamic capitalism of John Ruskin

Below is a quote from the final essay of John Ruskin's Unto This Last, first published in 1860. This collection of essays was a strong influence on Ghandi's life. With his creativity, mindfulness of God, and sharp intelligence, Ruskin rejects the two most popular economic ideas of his time: materialist capitalism on the one hand, and communist socialism on the other, instead proposing a form of capitalism that's exactly the Quran's: capitalism that's guided by such unfashionable ideas as kindness and virtue:

Observe, in these statements I am not taking up, nor countenancing one whit, the common socialist idea of division of property[1]; division of property is its destruction; and with it the destruction of all hope, all industry, and all justice: it is simply chaos—a chaos towards which the believers in modern political economy are fast tending, and from which I am striving to save them[2]. The rich man does not keep back meat from the poor by retaining his riches; but by basely using them. Riches are a form of strength; and a strong man does not injure others by keeping his strength, but by using it injuriously. The socialist, seeing a strong man oppress a weak one, cries out—"Break the strong man's arms"; but I say, "Teach him to use them to better purpose." The fortitude and intelligence which acquire riches[3] are intended, by the Giver of both, not to scatter, nor to give away, but to employ those riches in the service of mankind; in other words, in the redemption of the erring and aid of the weak—that is to say, there is first to be the work to gain money; then the Sabbath of use for it—the Sabbath, whose law is, not to lose life, but to save. It is continually the fault or the folly of the poor that they are poor, as it is usually a child's fault if it falls into a pond, and a cripple's weakness that slips at a crossing; nevertheless, most passers-by would pull the child out, or help up the cripple. Put it at the worst, that all the poor of the world are but disobedient children, or careless cripples, and that all rich people are wise and strong, and you will see at once that neither is the socialist right in desiring to make everybody poor, powerless, and foolish as he is himself, nor the rich man right in leaving the children in the mire.

—John Ruskin, Unto This Last and Other Essays on Political Economy. Note #63.

[1] Communism.

[2] There are many examples of the chaos that ensue when men are prevented from owning property: Philosopher David Stove, in his What's Wrong with Benevelonce makes a powerful case for the fact that men have no motivation to work and create civilization if there isn't the possibility of keeping their wealth, and he describes the deep, overwhelming unhappiness of men living under communist regimes (there are no smiling faces to be seen on the streets). Dr. Daniel Amneus makes the same point in his Garbage Generation, mentioning the idle and purposeless life of US men who, due to the unjust US divorce and family court system, end up living their lives as little more than money-making machines for their ex-wives, putting most of their earnings into a family that's no longer theirs. Paul Graham in his Hackers and Painters mentions that the most important reason for the West's renaissance was likely the first appearance of Italian city-states that allowed men to keep the fruits of their labor, instead of giving it to the ruling prince as was popular at the time elsewhere in the world (it can also be argued that allowing men to keep their wealth was the cause of appearance of the civilizations of Babylon and ancient Athens).

[3] According to many scholars, high intelligence and wealth are correlated: The richest group of society are also the most intelligent (i.e. smart people find it easier to get rich). See The Bell Curve. Here Ruskin is alluding to this observation, which even today is unpopular to state; people don't like the thought that biology can determine a person's chance of getting rich or poor. This is unfortunate, as the scholars who wrote The Bell Curve note, because it creates a society that doesn't teach intelligent people that it is their duty to take care of the poor.

Footsteps in heaven

It is related by Abu Hurayrah that the Prophet (s) once said to Bilal at the time of fajr: "Tell me about your act from which you expect the most in your Islam, for I have heard the sound of your footsteps in heaven."

"I have done nothing," replied Bilal, "which could give me hope, except that when I perform the wudu' in any part of the day or night I try to offer as much of salah with it as I can."

From The Four Pillars of Islam by Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi (1913-1999).

Small things

N

one of us know if we will ever do anything significant for the cause of Islam in our lifetime. It is impossible to know if we will ever attain the status of an 'alim, martyr, or parent. This is a strong motivation to do as many little things as possible on a daily basis with the time we have now. Little things that are easily accessible for all of us, that do not require money or a surplus of time, are abundant in Islam.

One can start with something as simple as wudu'. There are a number of merits surrounding the subject of ritual ablution. One of them is to go to bed in a fresh state of wudu'.[1]

Something small like this, done consistently, can help transform one's soul by chinking away at sloth, carelessness, and dirt -- both figuratively and literally.

[1] Sahih Bukhari, 1:247.

Is five prayers per day excessive in number?

In the Mi’raj[1] fifty daily prayers were prescribed for the believers. However, their number was later reduced to five. This was done to impress upon man that he had been found capable by God of devoting such a large part of his time and energy to His worship. The one who keeps this in mind will never regard the five daily prayers as excessive. In fact, he will realize that he had been found worthy of much more and had the Lord, out of His Grace, not made the concession, he would be carrying out His command dutifully and performing as many as fifty prayers (salāh) every day. God showed his favor to him and made the five prayers equivalent of fifty in reward. However, the original command is there to stir his ambition and urge him on to greater effort.

From Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi (1913-1999), The Four Pillars of Islam, p. 11.

[1] Prophet Muhammad's Night Journey.

Selfless Giving: The Most Effective Form of Islamic Dawah

The entire text of this essay is reproduced below. This essay is available as an ebook download for the Kindle and other devices, please refer to our Islamic eBooks page for download links.

D

r. Ali Qaradaghi, former president of the Fiqh and Osool (Islamic law) branch of Qatar University, and the founder of Rabitay Islamiy Kurd, a successful Islamic charity in northern Iraq says in an interview:[1]

“I've learned that dawah[2] doesn't truly reach the masses except when it is through acts of charity, and this is my understanding of the saying of Allah, "Be a nation that calls for what is good, encourages what is right, and discourages what is wrong, and those who do this are the successful ones"[3] . You call people to do charity toward others, and then in addition to it you encourage people to do what's right or discourage them from doing wrong. So in Kurdistan we adopted orphans, built mosques, and supported widows. There were over 50,000 thousand orphans in the country. 4,000 villages had been completely destroyed.[4] When we started our charity organization in 1991 we found out that the fruit of charitable acts is much greater than the fruit of the dawah that tries to only offer wisdom and guidance.”

Hearing this clarified an important concept in my mind: that there are two kinds of religious charities; those that, like Dr. Qaradaghi’s charity, serve people without expecting anything in return, and those that try to administer religion with the help they give.

The lesson I’ve learned from the success of Dr. Qaradaghi’s charity, and the failure of various Christian charities that are active in the same region, is that religious charities should be manifestations of their religion’s teachings, not propaganda centers. Religious charities shouldn't have a conversion agenda; their only goal should be following God’s words when He says:

And they love to feed the poor, orphans, and those imprisoned, [saying:] "We are feeding you due to our desire to meet God, we do not want from you any reward or gratitude."[5]

This attitude is extremely powerful. And we rarely see it from anyone, even from those who think they are very religious. But every now and then a man or woman appears who changes the world through the constant practice of this oft ignored commandment.

Selfless kindness that doesn’t expect gratitude, that only gives and doesn’t wait expectantly for anything in return, touches the depth of our hearts. We quickly fall in love with those who show this behavior toward us, and they quickly amass thousands and sometimes millions of followers. This is not a form of trickery to cause them to convert to our religion. Any religion that practices selfless-giving in service of God and teaches it is a true religion and deserves to be followed. The Quran, though the book of Islam, describes Christians who practice their religion in this selfless way as follows:

And you will find the closest of people to the believers to be those who said “We are the supporters” [of God, the Quran’s way of referring to Christians] because from them there are people devoted to learning and ascetics, and they do not act with arrogance. And when they hear what was sent to the Messenger [Prophet Muhammad] you will see their eyes overflow with tears as they recognize the truth they already know, saying “our Lord, we have believed, so count us among the witnesses.” “And how can we not believe in God and what has come to us of the truth, and we long for our Lord to include us in the company of the righteous?” So God rewarded them for saying this with gardens graced with flowing streams, to live in there forever, and this is the reward of those who do good.[6]

Though it’s not clear from this verse, the Quran doesn’t expect them to convert to Islam, as clarified by other verses from the Quran:

The [Muslim] believers, the Jews, the Christians, and the Sabians–all those who believe in God and the Last Day and do good–will have their rewards with their Lord, there is no fear for them, nor will they grieve.[7]

And also:

And every group has a direction to which it turns [when it prays], so compete with each other in doing good deeds. Wherever you are God will bring you together [on the day of Judgment], God is very much able at doing anything [He wants].[8]

Not all those who benefit from a selflessly-giving charity will appreciate the service, but this is the whole point: Not expecting anything in return. The charity should embody its religion and represent it, and beyond this, whether people appreciate it or not, is not the charity’s business, it is God’s, because as God says:

It’s not your duty to guide them, rather God guides whoever He wishes. Whatever you spend of good things [i.e. not broken or spoiled things] you do it for yourselves [God doesn’t benefit from your good deeds, ultimately you benefit from it in the afterlife]. Everything you spend should be in seeking of God’s pleasure. Whatever good things you spend will be faithfully returned to you [by God, in this life or the afterlife], and you will not be wronged [i.e. your reward will be just].[9]

Thus we should not expect any form of reward or gratitude for our acts of charity, it is this selfless, non-expectant, unassuming form of giving that softens the hearts of people toward God’s beautiful religions.

Giving selflessly, without expecting gratitude, is a difficult ideal, and one that few people and charities actually reach. It is very difficult to do charity without expecting gratitude from those who benefit from it, it is against human nature. We like to be thanked when we are nice to others. It is a state that could be rightly described by the following Quranic verse, though from a different context:

And [this state] is not reached except by those who have made it a life-long habit to practice patience, and it is not reached except by those who have a great share [of God’s mercy, bounty, and guidance].[10]

For those who like to do good deeds, the difficulty of selfless giving makes it even more worthwhile to pursue. God rewards good deeds based on the amount of effort we put into them, and selfless giving requires a great amount, maybe super-human, effort to achieve, and for this reason the rewards are clearly going to be great.

I should note that I'm not saying all other non-profits, such as those that produce religious lectures, are useless. Producing and offering lectures is of course a good deed, but those who do so should take into account God’s command:

There is no compulsion in faith.[11]

Thus making a group of homeless people sit through an hour-long lecture with the promise of free lunch is wrong and 'un-religious, because it is a form of compulsion (though slight)—the person who does this has used a reward to compel a group of hungry people to listen to religious indoctrination. And it completely goes against the ideals of selfless and non-expectant generosity that I mentioned above.

Religious charities should not force people to consume dawah material with their food, the charities themselves, their selfless giving and caring, should be the very dawah itself.

Notes

[1] Hadeeth Adhikrayat ma'a Dr. Ali Al-Qaradaghi, interview by Dr. Jasim Al-Mutawwa [Arabic].

[2] Arabic for ‘calling’ or ‘inviting’, in Islamic literature it refers to evangelism.

[3] Quran, 3:104.

[4] By Saddam Hussein's regime, through his Anfal campaign.

[5] Quran, 76:8, 9. Literal translation: And they feed food with love to a poor person, an orphan, and a prisoner. Indeed we are feeding you for God’s face, we do not want from you a reward or thanks.

[6] Quran, 5:82-85.

[7] Quran, 2:62.

[8] Quran, 2:148.

[9] Quran. 2:272. Literal translation: It’s not upon you their guidance, but God guides who He wants, and whatever you spend of good things then it’s for yourselves and you shouldn’t spend anything except to seek God’s face and whatever you spend will be faithfully given back to you and you will not be wronged.

[10] Quran, 41:35. Literal translation: And it is not reached except by those who were patient, and it is not reached except by those who have a great share.

[11] Quran, 2:256. Literal translation: There is no forcing in faith.

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