Wealth in Islam.

“Wealth in Islam is divided into two categories:

First the public wealth that is not owned by individuals, but rather they are the property of the entire nation. Such wealth includes oil, minerals, water depth… etc. Islam has instituted a detailed program of running these resources by the legitimate religious ruler or his deputies, who would carry on their task without any wronging on injustice.

The second kind is the wealth owned by individuals or groups, as a result of their work or inheritance. This kind of wealth is also governed by a detailed program. For although Islam did not take a negative stand regarding personal property, it hindered its accumulation in the hands of few people. It was concerned through its tax system and inheritance to ensure that the wealth is distributed among the biggest number of people, Imam Ali says in this respect: “No poor man is hungry except by what the wealthy man enjoys”. He also says: “I have never seen an accumulated wealth, that there is not a usurped right beside it”.” (Ayatullah Fadlullah)

more here

via Al Musawwir

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Tags: Wealth, Islam, The Criterion, Muhammad Karim

Show me.

"whatever happens
to the world around
show me your purpose
show me your source

even if the world
is Godless and in chaos
show me your anchor
show me your love

if there is hunger
if there is famine
show me your harvest
show me your resource

if life is bitter
everywhere snakes everywhere poison
show me your garden
show me your meadow

if the sun and the moon fall
if darkness rules the world
show me your light
show me your flame

if i have no mouth
or tongue to utter
words of your secrets
show me your fountain

i'll keep silence
how can i express
your life when mine
still is untold"

-- Rumi, Ghazal Number 2144, translated by Nader Khalili

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Love... by Rumi

I am not that luckless lover, to flee from the Beloved; I do not hold that dagger in my hand to flee from battle.

I am that plank with which the carpenter has much to do, I do not shrink from the axe or flee from the nails.

I am unselfed like a plank, I think not to oppose the axe; I am fit only for the flames if I flee form the carpenter.

I am as a worthless and cold stone if I do not journey oft to rubiness; I am as a dark and narrow cave if I flee from the Companion of the Cave.

I do not feel the kiss of the peach if I flee from leaflessness; I do not catch the scent of Tartary musk if I flee from the Tartar.

I am distressed with myself because I am not contained; it is meet, when the head is not contained, if I flee from the turban.

Many centuries are required for this fortune to emerge; where shall I find it again, if this time I flee?

It is not that I am sick and unmanly, that I shun the fair ones; it is not that my bowels are corrupt, that I flee from the vintner.

I am not mounted on a packsaddle to remain then in the arena; I am not a farmer of this village to flee from the Prince.

I say, “My heart, have done”; my heart replies, “I am in the quarry of gold, why should I flee from the lavishing of riches?”

this is poem number 174 from “Mystical Poems of Rumi” (Poems 1-200) by Jalal al-Din Rumi, translated from the Persian by A.J. Arberry (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1991)

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: Rumi, Art, Love, The Criterion, Muhammad Karim
: Rumi, Art, Love, The Criterion, Muhammad Karim
: Rumi, Art, Love, The Criterion, Muhammad Karim

Sacrifice

"You have to sacrifice your nafs... that's what Deen is about... sacrifice is making sacred the mundane." Shaykh Hamza Yusuf

"What you sacrifice for Allah is nothing but an outer manifestation of inner clarity and truthfulness." Shaykh Abdallah Adhami

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Love

How does one Love so much that they cannot speak, cannot move and you can only hear your blood rushing, heart pounding. Beyond any expression of word or deed it can only be felt.

and cannot be understood.

only talked about in abstraction like eternity.

Love in the long-term is the only Love worth having.. it can only be experienced, and when it is, we find out what true happiness really is... contentment.

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Tags: Love, Blood, Feeling, Experience, The Criterion, Muhammad Karim