These were the terms my early life provided. The more I thought about it now, the more I returned to my experiences in Muslim Africa. After two return trips to Morocco, in 1981 and 1985, I came to feel that Africa, the continent, had little to do with the balanced life I found there. It was not, that is, a continent I was after, nor an institution, either.
I once knew an atheist who claimed he had never believed in God's existence. In his view, believers were supposed to be people of weak character who felt the necessity to find a crutch for their inability and laziness, so they attended church.
Very early on, I learned that behind the glorious works of the Spanish Catholic mystics there was the history of Islam in Spain, and that a beautiful Islamic inspiration had survived in that tradition. I eventually travelled to Spain repeatedly, searching out the traces of the long Islamic residence in the Iberian Peninsula.
Ibn Taimiyyah (May Allah have mercy upon him), had a difficult life full of continuous trials, calamities, and tests. No sooner did one calamity end than a new one emerged. As soon as he is released from one prison, he is again locked up in another.
This is exactly what befalls the ignorant as a result of their own preferences. However, no matter what befalls them, they do not realize what is happening to their lives. Most of them only realize it after spending a whole life devoted to worldly pleasures, at the very time when they feel death is close. To their sorrow, however, it is too late. Even then, the grief does not stop there.
Fasting the month of Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam. These are the foundation upon which the entire structure of Islam is built. These consist of the declaration of faith, prayer, fasting Ramadan, paying of Zakah [the annual charity payment], and performing the pilgrimage to Makkah, known as hajj.
While the believer also enjoys those blessings that are described as the pleasures of this world, unlike the disbeliever, he does not consider them the purpose of his life. He may desire to possess them, but only for the purpose of giving thanks to God, and to use them to earn God's consent. He does not pursue out of greed. Because, he knows
People who are ignorant assume a self-sacrificing attitude towards their friends only when they believe it is advantageous. For a temporary period of time, they pretend to be a loyal friend. Yet, once the advantage has been derived from this relationship they assume a cool and distant attitude, implying that they no longer need such a bond.
Real generosity is not dependent so much on income as it is on the capacity of the heart. There are many who have the means to give, but not the heart to give. And there are many, who, the more they have the less they give. Henry Ward Beecher warned; "watch, lest prosperity destroy generosity".
The verses' statements are perfectly clear. Allah created Prophet Adam, peace be upon him, from dust. Prophet Adam is a special creation that emerged first from his existence in heaven and then from his removal from it. Yet evolutionist Muslims ignore this evident truth and maintain that "heaven" here refers not to the Heaven in the hereafter but to a beautiful area on Earth, despite the fact that the Qur'an specifies many features of the heaven in which Prophet Adam was created.
