Translation of the Qur'an by Mufti Taqi Usmani

Download it here. His biography is here.

Interactive Tajwedi Qur'an Reader

Hmmm, looks promising. InshaAllah going to test it out over the weekend.

http://itajweed.org/

My very own quran for taraweeh

Alhamdulilah, the long copy and paste nightmare is over! Courtesy of transliteration.org, I now have a word document that consists just of the Qur'an as translated by Yusuf Ali and a transliteration of the arabic into roman letters.

A common site at taraweeh prayers (at least at the masjids I go to) is for the congregants to hold little booklets containing one juz (1/30th) of the Qur'an, so that they may follow along with the imam during the prayer. Unfortunately, all the ones I've come across are simply in arabic, and since my arabic reading and comprehension skills are sorely lacking (one day inshaAllah!), I decided to make my own quran for taraweeh this year.

I copied and pasted the transliteration and translation from the website listed above into a word document. I plan to print it out, 3 hole punch and put it all in a large binder. Then, each night during Ramadan, I can take out one juz, stick it in a smaller binder and read from that during taraweeh. I think if I stick my backpack in front of me, during sujood I can stick the book on it so that the quran is not on the floor.

If anyone would like a copy, please leave me your email address, and I'll email you a copy inshaAllah. It's kind of long at 600+ pages, and not very pretty format wise, but it's functional.

Alhamdulilah, only a month until Ramadan!


ps - It's valid to read from a quran in the shafi'i school, so long as you don't fidget with it too much I believe. inshaAllah will look in my fiqh books when i get home to post the specifics

Tajweed podcasts

This tajweed podcast looks interesting, and hopefully, promising. I did tell the husband recently that I'd like to learn at least the basics of tajweed, so inshaAllah with his help and with this podcast, I'll be on my way.

From his blog, here's some info about the creator of the podcast:

khaled Bouchafaa
has been teaching Quran and Tajweed for the last 20 years in various Islamic colleges and masjids. He has been authorised by the Qurra to teach this sacred knowledge of tajweed and Quran. He began his studies of Qiraat in Algeria (from Sheikh Sharati rhm who was the student of the famous Sheikh Abdul-Aziz abul Uyun as Sud and from Sheikh Ahmed Ma'but who was the student of Bakri at Tarabishi) and acquired further knowledge from eminent Scholars of Qiraat in Damascus (Sheikh Abu Sulayman az Zabibi, Sheikh Abdur Razaq al Halabi and the Imam of Jamia al Qitat Sheikh Abu Usamah Basha). In addition, he has studied with Egyptian qarris (Sheikh Hassan Marzug al Jizzi). Sheikh Khaled recites Quran with riwayat Hafs by the Shatibiyah tariq and riwayat Warsh by the Al-Azraq tariq. Currently, he is a teacher of Quran in the largest Islamic School of Australia, is a volunteer Imam and provides tajweed lessons in English and Arabic in his local area.

These are some other tajweed related sites I'm planning on looking into when I have more time:

• About Tajweed
• Tajweed.com

most wonderful time of the year!

*skips along singing* ...it's the most wonderful time of the year...it's the hap -happiest season of all...with those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings...when friends come to call It's the hap - happiest season of all!

Yup, the most wonderful time of year is coming in 2 months, and I've already got the fever. No, not santa claus time, silly, it's Ramadan, baby, yeah! Gotta get my goals sorted out and my stuff in order so I can make the best of the month inshaAllah.

Before Ramadan:

1. Pray all 5 fard with at least 5 minutes of dua and dhikr after.

2. Read through the Qur'an. I have an excellent arabic/english quran podcast on my ipod. The translation is the saheeh international version, which just so happens to be the same translation as my little travel zippy quran (which they apparently don't sell anymore, much to my dismay after I've recommended it to several people who've been unable to find it). So, I can sit on the bus, listen to the arabic, and then read along with the english translation. inshaAllah my goal is to get through the end of the podcast, which is now at surah 66.

During Ramadan:

1. Pray witr every day.

2. Pray at least one taraweeh at the masjid a week. This is something I loved to do in college, but have slacked on since graduating and getting married. The husband holds the opinion that praying taraweeh at home is better than at the masjid, so he hasn't been too enthusiastic about going. But, inshaAllah this year I'm going to make the effort to go, even if it is on my own.

3. Go to the iftar potlucks. So far, I've only been a moocher at the community iftars, coming on Saturday and Sunday when people volunteer to make food. But inshaAllah this year I'm going to go to the potlucks that are on Friday night. I've been cooking more, and I think I have a few recipes that will satisfy the diverse community at the masjid.

4. Read the entire Qur'an in arabic and english. Since my ability to read the arabic script still sucks, I will rely on my most excellent Muhammad Asad translation, that has the arabic script, roman transliteration, english translation and extensive footnotes. I figure I'll pick out a recitation I really like, recite along with it for a page (using the transliteration), then go back, read the english translation and go over the footnotes. I figure this will take up a huge chunk of time, so I'll have to set aside blocks and commit to it. Unfortunately, the book is too large to take on the bus, but maybe I can find just a smaller transliteration, and do the arabic listening/reciting quietly on my hour long commutes to and from work.

I've always had reading the entire quran as a goal, but after an initial burst of energy, I peter off. Anyone want to be my quran reading buddy? We can hold each other accountable. Since my available time varies day to day, I thought rather than say a juz a day, the goal could be 7 juz in a week, so that it would be possible to catch up/work ahead on the weekends when there is more time available.

*note, all pictures in this post are from deviantart. Click on the pics to find more from these talented artists*

The quest to get a grasp on arabic

Last night, I began, once again, my attempts to learn arabic. I've had several fits of starting and stopping over the years, starting with a semester of independent study at college, all of which I have forgotten. More recently, I went on a spree and labeled everything in our apartment in arabic. Well, it's been a year, and I still don't know the word for cupboard.

Thursday is deen night in our household, where the husband and I turn off the television and computer, and attempt to spend the evening doing something deen related. The husband prepared a little khutbah on sustinance from Allah (swt), but that didn't fill the whole night. So got out the Easy Dictionary of the Qur'an I downloaded from the Sunnipath Library and one of my teach yourself arabic books that I've aquire over the years and got to work.

One of the sections contains an almost word for word translation of several shorter surahs. Since my ability to actually decifer the arabic script is long forgotten, I decided that the first thing I would do is attempt to deconstruct every word, figure out which letter was which, and from there, work on pronunciation. It was actually kinda fun, if unstructured. I figure I get a two for one deal here - get better at pronouncing arabic from the script, and I may memorize some additional surahs while I'm at it.

So, inshaAllah, that's going to be my Thursday evenings from now on.

In other arabic related webcontent, while I'm not fond of the content on the rest of the site, this selection of arabic books available for download looks pretty spiffy. It's the stuff from the Islamic University in Medina. I've downloaded the arabic writing practice book, because if there's one thing i remembered last night, it's that my arabic writing sucks big time.

Free books

fisabilillah.org has a number of free books that are available to read online. And, if you right click, copy and paste each page image into a word document, the books become portable. Imagine that, knowledge you can take with you anywhere ;-) There is no copy right to any of the material in the books, so copy and paste away.

I've only looked through the Qur'an related books, but thus far, everything looks peachy keen. According to their about us section, they're decidedly no partisan, but not anti anything. Oftentimes I've found that sites that claim to follow ahul al sunnah wa jamaah are virulently anti madhab, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

The books on Qur'an are fantastic. Each contains the verse in arabic, a transliteration, and then an easy to read translation. The translation looks to be the Dr. Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali and Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan version I'm not fond of, but with most of the commentary taken out, which is great. The main problem I have with this translation is the insertion of commentary into the text of the translation, which confuses many of the new muslims who receive this Qur'an for free. I can't count how many times I've come across a newbie who believes that the words in brackets are words from the Qur'an, and not mearly the commentary added to explain.

Ah, but I digress. Go, copy and paste, read!

Free lessons on Sunnipath

Via Seeker's Digest

On occasion, Sunnipath will hold free live sessions for all to attend. These sessions have covered a wide range of topics, from the Qur'an to extremism in our community. Now, some of these courses (and a mawlid event) have been recorded and are available to view anytime on their website. Definately check them out when you have a chance! I hope they put some of their earlier ones online as well.

Mawlid - with Shaykh Anas Khalifah
Pride & Humility - by Shaykh Abdul-Kareem Yahya
Reality of the Spiritual Path - by Shaykh Nuh Keller
The Opening: An Explanation of Surat al-Fatiha - by Shaykh Sohail Hanif

Sacred: Discover what we share

Via Visual Dhikr:


The British Library's online gallery of their sacred texts exhibit.

The Ma'il Qur'an is one of the very earliest Qur'ans in the world, dating back to the eighth century. Not only that, but it also probably hails from the Hijaz region of Arabia - a region which contains the holy places of Mecca and Medina, homes of the Prophet Muhammad.

Qur’an, Mecca or Medina, eighth century.

Chapter 26, al-Shu‘ara’ (The Poets), verse 183 to Chapter 27, al-Naml (The Ant), verse 3

BL Or. MS 2165, ff. 76v–77

Copyright © The British Library Board

This very rare early Hebrew Bible shows the influence of Islamic art in its decorative elements. It is named after a previous owner, Dr Moses Gaster (1856-1939), a scholar and spiritual leader of Sephardic Jews in London.

First Gaster Bible, perhaps Egypt, ninth or 10th century. Psalm 64
BL Or. MS 9879, f. 14v
Copyright © The British Library Board

for the Love of God

The husband and I had a long and winding conversation yesterday that eventually led us to these verses in the Qur'an:

And they feed, for the love of God, the indigent, the orphan, and the captive,
(Saying),"We feed you for the sake of God alone: no reward do we desire from you, nor thanks.
We only fear a Day of distressful Wrath from the side of our Lord."
But God will deliver them from the evil of that Day, and will shed over them a Light of Beauty and (blissful) Joy.

76:8-11


If we really loved God like we are suppose to, and we followed the letter and spirit of this verse, if we sought to help each other, as a means to express our LOVE for God, imagine the good we could do.

Surah Al Ikhlas recited by Mishary Rashid Al Afasy

Surah Al Ikhlas recited 10 different ways. The last few recitations are ones I don't know if I've heard before. Absolutely beautiful.

Whoever recites Surah al Ikhlas 10 times, Allah (swt) will build for him (or her) a palace in paradise (Ahmed)

The Book Foundation

My favorite translation of the Qur'an is the Muhammad Asad translation put out by the Book Foundation. SubhanAllah, it's a gorgeous book, something that is beautiful to look at as well as to read. The translation is easy to understand, has excellent footnotes, and it has accurate transliteration in addition to the english and arabic. If you don't have this book, put it on your list and get it!

The Book Foundation has also published a number of other books that are well worth checking into. If you don't have the $100+ it would cost to buy them all at the moment, the Book Foundation has kindly put up the first parts of each of these books online, mashaAllah. I printed them all out yesterday and have started to read through them. They all get a thumbs up from me thus far.

The Book of Revelations, Selections and Interpretations from the Holy Qur'an, Kabir Helminski, Editor - this is the one that's first on my list to buy. My husband is always telling me to THINK about the Qur'an, not just plow on through. He's excellent at doing that. He'll stop on a verse, pause for a moment, and then expound on it, going on and on and on, tying it to other verses and other subjects for as long as I'll listen to him. This book has 256 verses from the Qur'an with interpretation afterwards. I think it would help me with the thinking and reflecting

The Book of Character, Writings on Virtue from Islamic and Other Sources by Camille Helminski - second on my list to buy. If I could chose to be a scholar of anything, I would be a scholar of adab. Somehow, I feel that most of the world's ills are rooted in the fact that human beings treat each other like crud much of the time. We need a little more adab in this world.

The Book of Language, Exploring the Spiritual Vocabulary of Islam. Kabir Helminski, with Prince Ghazi Bin Muhammad

The Book of Nature, A Sourcebook of Spiritual Perspectives On Nature and the Environment, Camille Helminski, Editor

The Book of Essential Islam by Ali, Aisha, and Aliaa Rafea

The Fragrance of Faith, The Enlightened Heart of Islam by Jamal Rahman

On my ipod

The 30th part of the Qur'an by Sheikh Ali Hani. It's such a unique recitation. I don't know anything about different styles of recitation. Anyone know what this is called?

It has some weird popping noises that I didn't notice when I listened online, but still, it's beautiful, subhanAllah.

The Opening: Understanding Surah Fatiha

via Seeker's Digest:

The recording of the first Course Lens live event we had last weekend, The Opening: Understanding Surah Fatiha with Shaykh Sohail Hanif, is now available. You can view it here

New Year, Same 'ol Goals

Predictably, I've made some goals to accomplish this year. In the dunya side of things, I'm eating breakfast at least 4 times a week, because, um apparently, it's good for you. I'm also going swimming once a week, and to the gym 3 days a week. We get a deal at the local Y through our health insurance, but we have to go 12 times a month, or no deal. Thus, because I'm cheap, I'm forced to exercise or pay big $$$. Huzzah!

Slightly deen-y related, I'm in contact with the lady who runs the SplashGear website about getting some swimpants custom fit for my short stubby legs. She has been uber nice and responded to all of my questions with lengthy and informative answers. She gets an A++++ in the customer service department from me. Once I get the swimsuit and take it for spin, I'll give a full review.

It's been forever since I've gone swimming. I passed through the highest level of swim lessons our school district had to offer and passed the life guarding test at the youngest age I could take it. I wasn't a particularly fast swimmer - I was on the swim team for one year before I figured out I was really really slow - but I could swim for hours without getting tired. I loved being in the water. Unfortunately, after I took a job as a lifeguard, I developed very strong self conscious feelings about how I looked in a swimsuit. I wasn't fat. I was just a little on the chubby side, but all the other life guards were svelte athletes.

So, I didn't sign up to lifeguard again. I stopped swimming. A few years passed, and I converted to Islam and after that, started wearing hijab. I attempted to go to sisters only swimming sessions, but whenever I went, no one else was there.

Hijabi geared swimwear has been popping up, and I've been looking for something decent. The turkish stuff looks a wee bit too much like a rain coat for me, while ahiida looks pretty good, but it's really expensive coming from Australia. I do believe though, that I've come upon the perfect swimwear at the SplashGear website. I'm getting this outfit in black (I think), although I'm now wavering between that and this navy blue. Anyone have any thoughts?

Ok, totally deen-y, my goal this year is to learn all the surahs that MountHira creates tutorials for. I also have arabic on my plate again. I've dabbled in it before, taking a semester in college, and attempting to teach myself, but I've forgotten just about everything. inshaAllah husband will be helping me this time around :)

My future Islamic library

In addition to envisioning an Islamic Art gallery in my future house, I also have a dream to build an Islamic library that includes every english language translation of the Qur'an. I'm well on my way with Asad, Shakir, Yusuf Ali, Arberry, Khan, Saheeh International, Ahmed Ali and Cleary.

The Muhammad Asad translation is by far my favorite, partly for the translation, partly for the commentary and party for the beautiful presenation. This book is enormous, heavy and beautifully decorated. I've always looked longingly at the beautifully calligraphy of arabic only Qur'ans. The new Asad translation conveys a similar feel to that. Watch half.com, because they come up cheap on occasion, since CAIR has been handing them out and people reselling them to make a quick buck. Their loss is our gain.

I'm ashamed to admit that I've had this translation for almost 7 months and still haven't read through it all yet. But, I finish my paralegal certificate tonight (yaay!) and inshaAllah I'm going to set asside some time every night to read it.

Some of the many Qur'an related books on my wishlist to add to my library:

Transliterated Tajweed Qur'an by A. Nooruddeen Durkee
The Majestic Qur'an
Mufti Taqi Usami's translation and tafsir on the Qur'an
Illuminated Discourses on the Holy Qur'an
Qur'an Made Easy

Podcasting

I was gifted with a beautiful iPod nano in honor of the completion of my paralegal certification, forthcoming in 2 weeks. This has opened up a whole new segment of the online ummah to me - podcasting. In addition to traditional islamic downloads like the Qur'an and lectures in mp3 format, several ingenius brothers and sisters have created excellent weekly/occasional audio files available for download on a variety of subjects. I've stuffed my 2 gig beauty full to the gills, and still have more lectures and quran waiting in iTunes.

Currently on my iPod:

The Qur'an - I've got probably 15 full recitations of the Qur'an by different people on cd. Choosing at random, I've uploaded Zaki Daghistani. I think I may upload Abdul Baset next, but I'm not sure.

Qur'an Weekly Podcast - A portion of the Qur'an made available each week for download, with arabic and english recitations. Perfect for the non arabic speaking muslim on the go.

Mecca One Radio - recordings of an excellent muslim radio show out in California. Their website has the programs available to listen to online.

Somewhat on a tangent, they used to sell awesome iPod parody shirts. I never got a chance to order one. *sigh* One of their designs is at the beginning of this post. Scroll through the gallery at deenport for a thumbnails of 2 others.

AlHambra Productions - from the folks at Zaytuna Institute. These guys always have something brilliant to say subhanAllah.

Radical Middle Way - Search for it on iTunes. If youre not lucky enough to live in England so that you can hear these amazing talks in person, they're also available on their website.


Waiting to go on my iPod:

ADAMS Qurtaba Institute
Ihsan
altMuslim

Any suggestions for other good islam related podcasts? Since I've gotten my iPod, my commute to work (one hour each way) and and my workday have seemed much more fruitful. Stressed? Plug in the headphones and there's the quran, at my fingertips.

The Qur'an

I ordered my first Qur'an, an A.J. Arberry translation, from Half.com in the summer of 2001. But, I got impatient, and rather than wait for it to arrive, I went out and bought a Shakir translation from the local new age store, hehe. Both Qur'ans still reside on the top shelf of my religious books bookcase, along with nearly a dozen other Qur'ans I've aquired over the years.

Any islamic journey should start with the Qur'an, the book of Allah (swt). Luckly, the online ummah is chock full of Qur'anic resources.

First, one can simply read the Qur'an online. For the non arabic speaker, the MSA of USC has three concurrent translations - Yusuf Ali, Pickthal and Shakir - available here. Islamicity has an excellent search function, as well as an excellent subject index, in addition to translations in many languages and in arabic. One of my husband's favorite websites for Qur'an is Al Tafsir. This website also contains a number of translations, as well as tafsir.

Recitor.org has the Qur'anic text and translation, sinqed with the recitation, which is great for those who may wish to work on memorizing the Qur'an. And for those of us who are still beginners in memorization, the website Mount Hira has set up ingenius little lessons to facilitate the learning of shorter surahs.

In addition to reading and reflecting on the meaning of the Qur'an, one can also listen online as well. Several websites allow you to listen to and/or download the Qur'an from hundreds of reciters, mashaAllah - Islam Channel, Islamway, and Aswat Al-Islam have some of the most comprehensive lists written in English. In addition, one can listen to the Qur'an in arabic, followed by a reading of the english translation, which can make the experience more helpful and rewarding for those non arabic speakers. For those with an ipod, check the Qur'an Weekly podcast, which puts out a downloadable portion of the Qur'an in arabic and english.

For those who like to have visuals, a real treat can be found in these flash presentations of Surah Maryam and Surah Qaf - beautiful recitation timed to an english translation on your screen.

In addition to reading the Qur'an itself, you can read about the Qur'an as well. Islamic Awareness has some excellent pieces, from an apologetics perspective, on the history and integrity of the Book. Sunni Sister, aka Umm Zaid, has an excellent website with information for converts, including a great page of links related to the Qur'an.

The Qur'an is also available for sale online. I will on occasion buy from Half.com, but I prefer the Islamic Bookstore. I have purchased books from them nearly a dozen times, and have always been pleased with what I've received.

Finally, the Qur'an is available for free from numerous sites online. By far the best is CAIR's offer of a free copy of the Muhammad Asad translation and commentary. I have heard it may take several months to arrive, but when it does, subhanAllah, it's well worth the wait. It's my favorite translation *faints*

The Qur'an is God's final revelation to mankind. Make sure to spend time with it daily, no matter where you journey is taking you.