Egyptian Gumbo

If you read past the headline, congratulations, you are one of the few individuals who care. I wanted to write about this since I saw the video on Mujahideen Ryder’s blog. These past couple of days, I kept opening WordPress wondering if I should just write about something else — something more people would enjoy reading. I even made a whole other post ready to publish, but something stopped me.

I don’t want to be one of those people who just write for entertainment purposes. I will never write something just to cause controversy. I guess you can say I’m the black sheep of the journalism industry. While everyone else writes what will get more readers and more subscriptions, I’ll write what needs to be said no matter the reaction from the audience or even if there is no audience at all.

I guess you can say I’m a little disgusted with those methods, since I worked at a paper that used them — but then again, which newspaper doesn’t?

The reality is, the media dictates what we should think is important in the world and what we shouldn’t care too much about. You have media gatekeepers, people you don’t know anything about, saying, ‘This is what society should be talking about and this is something that is not really important or interesting to anyone.’

According to gatekeepers, people should care about Donald Trump’s hair or Barack Obama wearing Kenyan clothing.

One of those topics gatekeepers are telling us is not important is Iraq. Iraq won’t bring readers anymore. Iraq is something so, so far away; old news.

As you know, the video I’m posting is not pleasant in nature. It will cause emotional distress for those of you with a heart. And while I’m telling you this, perhaps half of you have already closed the window or have navigated away from this site. For those of you who haven’t, take a look at the video:

I don’t want to be another one of the ones who just turns away from the remembrance, just because it’s not pleasant to think about. I’ve done it before and I’m sure you have too. You see something depressing, you get sad for a couple of moments then block it out as something far and away; something you have very little to do with.

Reading this post is painful and uncomfortable for you. Because you know it’s exactly what you’ve done in the past and you don’t know how to stop from doing it again, today.

For one, we need to make dua for our brothers and sisters in Iraq and ask Allah to ease their hardship soon.

And lastly, for those of you with blogs, in journalism, or those of you who give lectures frequently don’t write with your viewers in mind, but write with your viewers in mind. Don’t write because you know it’s what they want to hear and will bring more fans your way, write because it’s what they need to hear. And leave the rest for Allah.

In a way I guess I, too, am a gatekeeper now. And Iraq, and the state of Muslims around the world is what I think is important and it’s something we should never forget. May Allah ease their hardship and strengthen the Muslimeen. ameen.

wallahu ta’ala alem.

There is MashaAllah a lot of people registered! You seriously don’t want to miss out on it, especially since the class is only going to be conducted once.

This is the last video before the launch of the first webinar on May 31st. Wallahi this is worth it. It’s no secret that I’m big on getting more Muslims in the media. It’s not only because it’s something I’m passionate about — but it’s because I know what potential is out there. This video does a good job of laying out the problem in the beginning with the 3D graphics then tells all about Message Mastery.

Registration will close I believe on June 13th. So whether you are more interested in writing, marketing or film making. Signing up for the first class is crucial because you will get into all the other ones for free. It’s really worth the money. And I hope that Allah ‘az wa jal makes it heavy on the scales of the people that register. ameen.

Remember the first session will be FREE for everyone to tune in and listen to on May 31st. So check it out and tell your Muzzzzlim friends.

Also: There is a post talking about the difficulties when making this video here.

Sheikh Muhammad bin al-Uthaymeen -rahimahullah- said in his sharh of the first of the 40 hadith An-Nawwawiyyah (”innamal ‘amaallu bin-niyyat…”– all deeds are but by intention…):

“The worship of the heedless ones are habits and the habits of the people of awareness are worship”

When we eat, most of the time we do it for enjoyment and it being just a normal part of our day. However, if a person really takes heed and changes his intention he could get rewarded by Allah ‘az wa jal. So when you go to eat, eat because it will give you the energy you need to worship Allah — and that is what will give you good deeds.

—–

I started my YouTube account a little over a year ago. I made the account so that I could comment on other people’s videos as well as use it to upload videos in the future.

This was around the time I had come across the very well known recitation of Sheikh Fahd Al-Kanderi of surat Al-Qiyyamah. It’s a recitation that made most of our eyes well with tears and shook (and still shakes) us to our very core. A couple of days later, I came across a set of eight Quran recitation videos someone had uploaded by the same sheikh. And I thought to myself, “These are GEMS. I need to upload them unto YouTube for everyone else to benefit from; And perhaps for every person who listens and watches these videos, Allah ‘az wa jal will reward me.”

That was my intention, and may Allah ‘az wa jal keep my intentions purely for His sake. Ameen. I uploaded the videos.

Alhamdulillah, I checked back recently and found that this one video I had uploaded over a year and a half ago has gotten over 450,000 views. Here is the video, I really love his recitations:

It is my hope that Allah ‘az wa jal will reward me — and I humble myself unto Him.

Anyway with that said, most of my YouTube channel is Quran recitations that I’ve uploaded. I go to certain Islamic forums in Arabic that post all sorts of recitations — so I find those videos and I upload them unto YouTube. I really love the khaliji style of recitation. Some of my favorite reciters are Mishary Rashid (of course), Maher Al-Muayqilly, Fahd AlKanderi, Majid al-’Anzi, Yasir Al-Filkawi, Muhammad Al-Luhaydaan, Salman bin al-’utaybi and Salah Al-Hashem.

So here are just a few of my videos and Insha’Allah I hope you contemplate and enjoy the recitations as much as I do:

Majid Al’Anzi: Surat Al-Hujurat

Fahd Al-Kanderi: Surat At-Tahreem

Yasir Al-Filkawi: From Surat Az-Zummar

Oh, and This Really Cute Baby “Khateeb” (not Quran):) :

Lessons:

Make your intentions purely for Allah’s sake and leave the rest for Allah — He will give you success. And continue to KEEP those intentions pure.

Take a break and contemplate the Quran. I’ve provided in the description section — with a lot of my videos — the translation of the verses for those who do not understand Arabic. Follow along. Find a Quran reciter that YOU enjoy listening to and follow along with your mushaf and contemplate.

A lot of us, including myself, spend a lot of time on the computer. Despite how busy we might be, we don’t even need to leave our desks to raise our own iman. Take time away from your busy life to remember Allah — find your special recitation today.

WAllahu ta’ala alem.

As a disclaimer before I write this post, I am not (yet) a niqaabi. However, recent events have widened my eyes and moved me to a point I decided that I should write about it.

In Baton Rouge, there are probably only three niqaabi sisters. One of them is a good friend of mine and the other two I’m just adding on for wishful thinking. My sister recently came down to visit for a week, and it was the first time she came down since she started wearing niqaab, mashaAllah.

I started wondering if my world as a girl who wears hijab and abaya is really much different than a girl who wears niqaab/khymar. I’m not talking in terms of shariah, I’m talking about society’s treatment of Muslim women; specifically the western society. I thought that people who dislike (or even hate) Muslims would hate us just the same amount whether we cover our faces or not. I figured we’d probably get an equal amount of dirty looks.

What I noticed was vastly different reaction from society as well as the effect of the niqaab on the sister wearing it. Now, I’m speaking directly in terms of the interaction and reaction of the people down here in Louisiana. It’s probably much different in other places like Philly and New York, because people are more used to seeing diversity in those areas.

In Louisiana I noticed 2 different reactions:

1. People gasping out of disbelief

2. People trying their best to be so friendly to you, because they know how prejudice the rest of society is toward you.

The people who gasped out of disbelief were the true southern hicks. Almost immediately when she arrived, there was a guy with a mullet sitting outside with his buddy staring at her like he was watching the most interesting thing he had ever seen on TV. My sister turned to me and was pretty ticked off and told me how obvious it was that they were staring at her. I turned around and they didn’t even pretend they weren’t looking straight at her. They pointed and whispered. My brother-in-law ended up giving them dawah and in the end they were actually pretty nice.

The guy asked my brother-in-law where he and my sister were from. And they were pretty shocked when he told them that my sister was born and raised in Baton Rouge, La.

“You got me!,” mullet guy responded with a hick accent. Then they inquired why I didn’t cover my face by my sister did.

That’s true Egyptian Gumbo right there.

The stares and whispers happened everywhere we went. It didn’t really bother me, because as Muslims you need to be strong and you need to not care what society says or thinks about you — especially if you are doing something for the sake of Allah.

I asked my sister if this was normal. She replied, “It’s gotten to a point that if they don’t stare, I think something is wrong with them; It’s like, ‘Why aren’t you staring?’”

Which brings me to a very important message that can’t be delayed:

——-

MESSAGE TO ALL NON-MUSLIMS:

Niqaabi Women can SEE. They are not blind. They can see you staring, they can see you praying for your life and they can see you trying to figure out how they eat. Thank you, that is all.

——-

The second type of people were the ones that were the nicest of people and just want to make you feel welcome no matter what. People would come up and tell my sister that (mashaAllah) her baby was really good on the plane, and other people would just be extra nice when talking. It’s treatment I never saw (or never noticed) as a sister who wears abaya.

Now, for the transformation within.

Subhanallah, I really admire anyone who wears niqaab — especially here in the States. You really have to be strong and you just have to put your trust in Allah.

I was pretty shocked with the strengthening of my sister’s personality, mashaAllah. When people would say something or stare at her for very long she’d basically go up to them and ask them “What’s your problem?” She told me how there was this one ghetto girl who basically was trying to mock my sister and her husband. My sister told the girl that surprise, surprise, “I speak better English than you.” The girl backed off. Alhamdulillah.

—-

There are always sisters looking to take the next step, but are always afraid of the result. For that sister out there who plans to wear hijab “one day” make that day today. Most of the time our fears just come from shaytaan and not putting our priorities in the right place. Why should we fear society and fear the things they may (or may not) say?

Allah tell’s us in the Quran that the disbelievers will never be pleased with us. In fact, in surat Al-Maeda verse Allah ‘az wa jal says,

“This day, those who disbelieved have given up all hope of your religion, so fear them not, but fear Me. This day, I have perfected your religion for you, completed My Favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islâm as your religion.”

Allah ‘az wa jal has more right to be feared. And as long as you are doing something for His sake, He will protect you and give you strength.

If you’re a sister who “wants to wear abaya one day” then subhanallah even from my own experience, a sister who lives in Louisiana, you have nothing to be afraid of except for Allah. There is really nothing to it. Have I gotten hateful comments before? Yes but rarely. The guys that do say something to me, I follow them asking them to repeat what they said directly in my face… but they run away from me. (true story lol)

In general, I feel like people are truly shocked when you show them you are not weak like they think you are. If you stand up for yourself you gain that respect and they in turn are the weak ones.

If you shy away from taking the next step, then you shy away from a lot of ajr and a lot of dawah opportunities. Because as i’ve noticed the higher you go in the level in which you want to please Allah and go that extra mile to do something for His sake, the more opportunities for dawah you get.

I mean just in the week that my sister spent here there was not a day that went by that dawah wasn’t given to the people that interacted with her or even stared at her! Compare that to the sister who is afraid to even put on a hijab, subhanallah society looks at her and thinks she is just one of them, although she is not because she worships Allah and believes in His Oneness.

Think of the group of people you want to be with on the Day of Judgment — would you want to be with the society that you blended into in this world, or would you want to struggle a little to be with the society of the righteous Muslims from every generation? Wallahi I would chose to be with the salaf and those that follow the manhaj of the salaf any day.

Just some food for thought. And to the girls that attend our youth halaqa, think deeply about this and more importantly I know many of you have something that has held you back in the past. But really, now is the time to act. Take that next step to become closer to Allah and become the Muslim you’ve expressed you want to become. InshaAllah we’ll talk soon

WAllahu ta’ala alem.

Insha’Allah I hope I won’t get in trouble for this post. Because this is going to be some juicy goodness right here.

For those of you who don’t know, I do a lot of the PR work for Message Mastery. I really only do PR work for projects I really, truly believe in. MM is one of those projects that subhanallah, not only I have full faith and support in, but sheiookh like Yusef Estes, Muhammad Alshareef and Yasir Qadhi have also all showed interest and support in.

(If you know about Message Mastery, we want to know your thoughts and/or how you heard of the program. So be sure at the end of this post to leave a comment letting us know.)

If you knew the amount of work that goes into making something like MM successful (by the Will of Allah) then subhanallah, you too would find this to be something rare and a great opportunity for all Muslims.

Some of you have seen the Message Mastery videos, some of you haven’t. I’m not going to talk about things you might already know (from the videos and the website) but rather, I’m going to tell you the “backstage” stuff that goes on; things we discuss and only insiders know and things that will be released publicly soon, but you hear it here on my blog first

But before tell you the inside stuff, here’s just a little bit about Message Mastery: It’s all about training Muslims to be well-rounded in several areas of the media; not only for the sake of their own work, but for the betterment of Islam, inshaAllah.

10 things you might or might not know:

1. Plans for the Message Mastery System:

The upcoming film making class (on May 31st) is NOT Message Mastery. That is just ONE CLASS in the Message Mastery system. The plan is that we are establishing this as the first webinar of many to come in the future. There will be other classes like marketing/viral marketing 101, photography , and surprise, surprise — a media writing/PR writing 101 class taught by none other than yours truly, inshaAllah. Those among many other classes, bi’ithnillahi ta’ala. So this really is going to be an all inclusive “getting Muslims in the media” system. Awesomeness, no?

2. Special Deals Still Under the Rug… Until Now:

Shh, word on the street is that if you sign up for the first class (film making) you’ll get into all the other future classes free. Why is this genius? It’s genius because only 200 people will get this deal. Everyone else will have to pay for every other webinar they want to take when they come out.

3. People Who Actually Make Awesome Projects/Films Will Have the Opportunity to Get Client Work in the End. There is more work being sought out then there are the Muslims with the skills to do it. We know who’s looking for promo videos, news articles, marketing for their projects/companies. And inshaAllah those people who show the best work will be given these opportunities.

4. The Awesomeness and WEIRDNESS of Our PR Team.

If there was ever an example of a “mastermind group” this would be it, mashaAllah. I must say, we have all different types of personalities on the team but somehow we all compliment each other’s ideas and thinking in the end.

We have the social members of our group — the ones who love to give input on everything (which is great) and we have the silent ones who out of no where “bust out” with their great ideas. We have the nice members of our group and we have that one sarcastic “mean” member of the group who makes us all gasp in disbelief at some of the things he says . Ahem… see (www.themanoffewwords.com and www.islamify.com.) –Oddly enough, he too, brings forth great ideas and puts his words to action… so we’re all happy to have him on the team.

5. More Weirdness:

We all make fun of each other’s grammar and spelling, we have about 30 posts for every topic we discuss and we all read them — it’s the nerdiest group you will ever come across, and I love it. Hafsa will email me all my mistakes in this post (which I love), the poor brother and sister from the UK stay up all night just for our conference calls, Manoffewwords always insults all members of the group only for all of us to end up laughing at it, despite its meanness, and several members of the group keep trying to get Belal in trouble with the authorities by suggesting project names like “Youtube Jihad.” Sorry Belal, you have bad friends.

6. Taking Over Ideas and Us Acting Like We Know What Br. Belal is Talking About:

Belal, who makes the videos, usually has a specific vision for what he wants his next videos to turn out like. He usually has it all planed out until we, his PR team, decide that he should do something completely different. And subhanallah, he doesn’t hesitate to go with our advice. He also likes to make up a lot of words — i.e. “ordinatory, UPPOPPR” — and uses them a lot, expecting we know exactly what he’s talking about.

7. If You’re Worried About the Cost, You’re Worrying Over Nothing.

I don’t work for scams. If I truly didn’t think that people would get their money’s worth, I wouldn’t be promoting it. ESPECIALLY with this first class (since you’ll get all the other ones free.) We debated and debated over the cost, and really $247 was what we came up with due to all the things we KNOW that will be provided for those who register. Trust me, people pay thousands of dollars for less than you would get with Message Mastery.

8. Most of Us Just Want to See His Little Sisters in the Videos…

…share the spotlight. All up in their “grill” like that.

9. We’re all Becoming Masters of Viral Marketing.

Seriously, we’re discovering so many secrets and techniques that will blow anyone’s socks off. We also have so many ideas that are being worked on right now with regard to viral marketing, all of which will be taught inshaAllah in one of the future Message Mastery webinars.

10. None of Our Success Could be Possible Without the Will and Help of Allah.

Walhamdulillah.

OK, this post became a little too long. If you haven’t already go ahead and check it out and TAKE the opportunity while you can, inshaAllah.

To be honest, hate using the word “opportunity.” I’ve too been jaded way too much by that term. “You have the opportunity to go to outer space! Oh, did we mention you just have to have 20 million dollars.”

However, this really is an opportunity for any Muslim with some interest in any of the areas within mass media. So I suggest you check it out at www.messagemastery.com.

P.S. before any of you label me as stupid, I wouldn’t really write a post if I knew it was something that could get me in trouble and cost me my job :).

Let us know your thoughts. A new video will be coming out any day now, inshaAllah — stay tuned.

Hmm, what can I say about Bill O’Reilly?

Someone sent this to me a couple of days ago via StumbleUpon (just another reason why everyone should use StumbleUpon!) Some of you may have seen this before some of you haven’t. Keep in mind that this is someone who is supposed to be respected and “honest.” Fox News junkies love him. I’ve always hated his program not only because it’s Fox, but because he never lets anyone speak. He yells at everyone and he’s very good at taking control of the conversation and twisting things around.

It’s a video of Bill O’Reilly going crazy on the floor director in the studio: (warning, there is graphic language):

Here’s another clip of him claiming he only told someone to shut up once in the past 6 years:

I just saw this news article, which just made me say, “Subhanallah!” We tend think about earthquakes, tornadoes, cyclones and tsunamis when referring to natural disasters — but now you can add “Sinkholes” to that list. And apparently there is a major one in Texas.

I’ve never heard of sinkhole before today. News.aol.com reported sinkholes can sometimes be caused by “The collapse of an old salt dome where oil brine and natural gas are stored underground.”

It’s apprently expanding and takes about 2 weeks to fully stabilize. It just shows another ayah of the might and power of Allah! One thought always comes to my mind when thinking about these natural disasters: they Day of Judgment; how scary it actually is when you see these things. WAllahul musta’an.

Alhamdulillah, so far there have been no reports of injuries. Here are some pictures for your viewing: (I’m going to be “un-journalistic” and not put captions nor credits for these photos.. if you want to see the source to go yahoo news and aol news.. nor will I edit this post, I’m tired.)

this thing is 900 feet wide and about 200 feet DEEP

Here’s an article about it:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080509/ap_on_re_us/texas_sinkhole;_ylt=AtE7YKFaZ9_wabM6dU10b1BsaMYA
La qowwita illa billah.

Mr. Dreher,

Your latest article on beliefnet.com has recently come to my attention — partially because of the subject matter being about me and my work with The Daily Reveille.

I’ve done a little bit of research about you and your past and have discovered that you are currently a columnist for the Dallas Morning News, are a contributor to the National Review and The American Conservative. It also appears that you were previously a columnist for The New York Post and have authored a book titled, “Crunchy Cons.”

However, regardless of your “credentials,” I am not impressed. While it does seems that you are a journalist by definition, you failed to do the most fundamental and obvious thing any journalist should do before writing an article: research. You’ve been an opinion columnist longer than I have. So it seems rather odd to me that you would neither do your research nor ask me for an interview before assuming certain things.

In your article, “Dhimmitude on the Bayou” you wrote:

“Favog discovers, to his chagrin, that our alma mater in journalism, the LSU Daily Reveille, allowed itself to be mau-mau’d by a Muslim Student into giving her a column, which she used to proselytize for Islam.”

Mr. Dreher, it seems as though you did not take the time to even look through or read any of my columns before rushing to judgment.

You later said, “Now, just imagine a state college newspaper giving a column to a fundamentalist Christian who uses it solely for the purpose of evangelization. Wouldn’t happen. Shouldn’t happen. But anything can be justified in the name of diversity. Ms. Elmasraya may be a pushy activist with a one-track mind, and a mediocre, jargon-dependent writer to boot, but the lady obviously knows a thing or two about how American newsrooms work. I predict she’ll go far.”

I challenge you to find any instances in any of my columns i’ve written in the past 1.5 years in which I blatantly call people to accept Islam. If someone accepted Islam as a result of reading my columns and seeing the truth nature of Islam, than this is by the Will of Allah alone and I’m very happy that I could help someone see the true nature of a true religion. And yes, this has happened before but I still challenge you to find an instance of what you call, “Evangelization.”

So again, for a journalist it’s surprising to see that you did little-to-no research on my past columns before you decided to dish out your “George-Bushy” words.

You claim that I somehow admitted my columns were for proselytizing Islam in my “Farewell Daily Reveille” post - which again, has no basis. I told a story of how I was hired. And in order to understand my post you need to understand a concept called “Divine Decree” or Qadr. And that is to say that Allah (or God) had everything that we will do in our lives already written before we were even born and that everything that happens in the world is by His will. It was by the divine decree of Allah that I was at the right place and the right time which led me to get my job. Much like it is by the Qadr of Allah that we wake up every morning.

I also take offense at the notion you have made by implying The Daily Reveille felt threatened or pressured into hireing me. If that were the case, then why would they re-hire me for two more semesters in which about 100 other people were competing for that one spot every semester? I did have to re-apply and go through the interview process every semester with different editors and different managers each time — just so you know. And tell me Mr. Dreher, how can this be when I had no idea they were accepting applications at the time and the editor himself was the one who suggested I apply? Hmm…

You also said, “Now, just imagine a state college newspaper giving a column to a fundamentalist Christian who uses it solely for the purpose of evangelization. Wouldn’t happen. Shouldn’t happen.”

It did happen. Again, this shows your lack of research because if you did any at all the name “Emily Byers” would come to mind. Byers is a friend and ex-Coworker of mine. She, too, was a columnist for The Daily Reveille who — more often than not — would talk about Catholicism. So nice try.

I’d like to thank you for being an example to the Muslims (and to the rest of the world) the very problem with the mass media today. People are quick to write and speak publicly without doing any investigations or without knowing anything at all about the topic they talk about.

Your use of the words “Dhimmi,” “Evangelical” and “Proselytize” are poor attempts of persuasion, to say the least. And I think most of your readers caught on to that based on the comments they left you on your site. But to reiterate, I thank you for being a prime example for my readers as to why they should NOT trust everything a journalist and someone with so-called “credentials” spews out at them.

Perhaps the problem, Mr. Dreher, is not that The Daily Reveille hired me to write about Islam, but perhaps you, as a strong conservative, are merely threatened by the spread of the true nature of Islam. For even the idol-worshipers during the time of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) used to attack him not because of him as a person, but because it was Islam and truth that they hated.

And Allah knows best.

Sincerely,

Shirien

“Who are YOU to tell ME anything?!”– We’ve all heard this some point or another when we got into a “heated debate” with someone. In essence, if someone spits this out at you they most likely want your resumé; your credibility. (And most likely they think they’re better than you, bad friend I tell ya.)

I started the first post of a series on the Leechon Blog called “The Best Persuader, Muhammed (Salallahu alayhi wa sallam).” I’m currently writing a book (which has been on hold for a while) about the art(sunnah) of persuasion in light of the sunnah.

This is REALLY useful information… so read on inshaAllah:

(photo courtesy of futoor.com)

Yesterday, I held a conference call with my PR team and the issue of ethos, pathos and logos came up into the conversation. With these three things properly executed in a message, one can achieve persuasion, by the Will of Allah.”OK Gumbo, what are you talking about?” I’m talking about establishing credibility (ethos), having an emotional appeal (pathos) and having a factual or logial appeal (logos). And there is no doubt the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam would have all three of these elements in his speech. *these terms are terms of contemporary rhetorical scholars, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam set the first and prime example for mankind*

So first let’s give examples from the life of Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, then let’s apply that to our lives today.

When studying seerah, you will notice how scholars are not shy of establishing the credibility of the Prophet,salallahu alayhi wa sallam. For indeed, Allah ‘az wa jal chose the best of the best of the best to deliver and carry the message of Islam.

Imam Ahmad narrates a hadith in which people were talking about and describing the Prophet sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam in different ways. For example, one person said that Muhammad sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam was like a green tree growing in the desert. In reality what they were trying convey was that Muhammad sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam was the only good
person in the clan. So Ibn Abbas says “certain things the people were saying reached the messenger of Allah, so he mounted the pulpit and asked, ‘Who am I?’ they replied ‘You are the messenger of Allah’ he replied ‘I am Muhammad bin Abdillah bin Abdul Muttalib. Allah divides the creation and made me amongst the best of His creatures and He made them all into two groups placing me in the better of them. He created the tribes and placed me in the better of them and divides them into clans and placed me in the best one and I’m the best of you in clan and in spirit.’”

So the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam is saying, I’m not the best person in a group of evil people. But instead he was saying that I am the best and from among the best. You’ll also notice that he referenced his linage back to Abdul Muttalib who was of course well known and highly respected in all of Hujaz.

The prophet sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam also said, “Verily, Allah granted eminence to kinanah from amongst the descendants of Ishmael, and he granted eminence to Quraysh from among kinanah, and he granted eminence to the bani Hashim from Quraysh, and he granted me eminence from the tribe of Banu Hashim.”

Again, this establishes his credibility in a line of the best of tribes and clans. So what exactly does this credibility do? This catches the audience’s attention. It makes the speaker seem that whatever they have to say is both valuable and should be considered due to the that person’s ethos.

And what about other instances from seerah? The fact that the Prophet Salallahu alayhi wa sallam was NEVER an idol worshiper, never drank alcohol, that Allah protected him from listening to music before his prophethood. These are all things that can be categorized under ethos (or credibility of the speaker- salallahu alayhi wa sallam)

How does this apply to YOU?

Let’s say you make Islamic videos, write a speech to be delivered, have a blog or business, or even just give dawah to muslims and/or non-Muslims. You NEED to establish your credibility. And to use specific examples:

Let’s say you are giving dawah to a Muslim and you are trying to convince them to pray regularly and become more practicing. Perhaps you or someone you know was in the same position a while ago and you(or they) completely changed since that time. You should mention this experience to give you better ethos in their eyes- thus, better convincing them to take the same path you did to become closer to Allah.

Another example: Why do you think all those weight loss pills and diets catch on like wildfire? It’s because of all the testimonials they see and read about. REAL PEOPLE getting REAL RESULTS. I mean c’mon have you seen those infomercials?!

Or even just look at the sheiookh when they speak at conventions or in different communities. You will always see a moderator or MC first give an introduction with a background of the sheikh before he speaks to establish his credibility to his audience.

If they do it, you should too. Wallahu Ta’ala Alem.

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There’s no doubt that media is a dangerous field to go into. Sometimes you can get so caught up in what you’re doing, it can slowly take you away from what’s truly important. Sure, those of us that work with media always say, “Well I’m doing it for the sake of Allah” and that may be true, but when it consumes your day without really studying your deen more in depth or forgetting to pick up the Quran and continue with your memorization — that’s when it’s truly dangerous.

This of course doesn’t only stand with media, it applies to every field. And the further I go into my projects, the more terrified I am of it taking me away from studying Islam. So I’ve made it a point to inshaAllah balance it, or to quit my projects all together, Wallahu alem. May Allah protect us all from that, ameen.

Anyway, in light of all my previous posts being only about media, I decided to try to offset that trend by posting another video I made of a recitation by Salman Bin Al-Utaybi.

I hope you all are shaken by his recitation as much as I am:

The first one is just footage I shot randomly at LSU while I was around the lakes. I put this together in 5 min,but the recitation is amazing. From my favorite surah: Surat Ghaafir (40).

This is a continuation from surat Ghaafir, from footage I took in Marina, Egypt after Fajr. (I made this one a couple months back)