Exclusive!* Imam Zaid Shakir has been confirmed as the keynote speaker at the Cordoba Center Ramadan fundraising event: Feeding The Soul. This event is an annual fundraiser that the South Valley Islamic Center/Cordoba Center conducts during the month of Ramadan. Imam Zaid has blessed the small (but growing) community with his participation at the inaugural and second Feeding The Soul event. We** are ecstatic to have Imam Zaid and his wife, Umm Hassan, with us again this year for the 4th annual event.

Following last year’s tradition, the community plans to finish reciting the Quran during the nightly Tarawih prayers after the fundraiser.

Imam Zaid has just published an article titled Ramadan Lessons: Lesson One. Imam Zaid has also initiated a new endeavor: The Lighthouse Mosque in Oakland, California. Check out the Facebook group here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5069346607

Check Imam Zaid’s upcoming events and programs here: http://www.newislamicdirections.com/nid/programs/

* As of this posting, no announcements have been made on Imam Zaid’s site, Zaytuna or Cordoba Center.

** Most of the IslamCrunch team reside and contribute to the community.

A couple of months before the launch of IslamCrunch, Abdallah Chappelle sent us a copy of the Washingtonian with an article about him and his childhood friend, Rabbi Charlie Buckholtz. Our brother and mentor, Preacher Moss, had mentioned that he was going to introduce us, so we were ecstatic to have received a letter with the article from Brother Abdallah. For those of you who don’t know, Abdallah is Dave Chappelle’s elder brother. With the recent news of Dave’s involvement with the Allah Made Me Funny Comedy Movie, we thought we should share this endearing article.

“Both share a dream to go to Jerusalem together and walk among the holy sites.

Proof that Islam and humanity go hand-in-hand:

“Charlie’s friendship with Sedar* has given him knowledge he has used when a Jew makes a negative statement about Muslims. “I say I know for a fact that there are some strong Muslims who aren’t involved in this,” he says, “or that a certain act isn’t representative of Islam—that something is not true down the line.”

* Sedar = Abdallah’s birth name

Read the full article here: Faithful Friends (washingtonian.com)

Dardan’s personal notes after listening to the CD “Seventeen Benefits of Tribulations - by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf”

The speech is based on a booklet written by Sultan ul Ulema or Sultan of the Scholars Izzedin Abdul Aziz Abdus Salaam As Sulaymi (d 660) from Egypt. This scholar mastered two madhabs! [Editor: Arabic/English amalgam - plural for madhab, a school of thought in Islam.] Only one in history to do so. He wrote this book on calamities, tribulations and disasters and their benefits. One of the aspects of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) – the extraordinary aspects of his life is that he never allowed tribulations to disquiet him. In other words, he never allowed any difficulties that he faced to perturb him – to put him in a state of turbulence.

Someone who has forbearance is “halim“. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had more “halim” or forbearance than anyone else. “Hilm” is the word for “intellect”. One of the things they accuse the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is that “he causes us to lose our intellects or to make us look like fools”. The man of intellect is someone who has hilm and the one [without] is safaha. Intellect stabilizes – that is why the halim is someone who does not get disquieted.

What is interesting about [disquietude] – the word for “dream” is “halam“. Someone who doesn’t get perturbed is halim and a dreamer is halam. Connection = hard to dream when agitated. Dreams need a state of [quietude].

“Halema” is the word for “nipple”. Mother gives the child halema. The child goes into a state of complete [quietude]. Milk and knowledge are from the same source. Sayyidina Umar (radi Allah anhu) saw a dream in which milk was coming from [the] Prophet’s (peace and blessings be upon him) fingers and Umar (radi Allah anhu) drinking it and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said “al Ilm al Ilm!” It is knowledge (the dream’s interpretation).

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Halal stock market investments arrive. No alcohol, gambling, pork, pornography, tobacco and other non-Shariah compliant products are not included.

Standard & Poor’s said it launched a fully investable S&P Pan Asia Shariah Index, which draws stocks from nine Asian markets in the S&P Citigroup Global Equity Index. The new index will enable Islamic investors to benchmark their investment on a regional basis, and give product providers the opportunity to develop structured products tailored to the Islamic market, S&P said.

Source: S&P launches fully investable Pan Asia Shariah Index for Islamic investors – Forbes.com. More info on Yahoo Finance News and MSN MoneyCentral. We like the use of the term ‘Islamic investors’. How about Muslim investors?