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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