Highlights from the last day of the Reviving The Islamic Spirit 2007 Convention:

• Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah sent a video message that was later translated by Shaykh Abdullah bin Hamid Ali, Zaytuna Institute’s newest scholar.
• Unfortunately, Imam Warith Deen Muhammad could not attend. We were really keen on listening to Imam W.D.
• After Imam Zaid Shakir’s lecture about African-American/Canadian culture and family values, he introduced Kairi Jamil to talk about his father, Imam Jamil al-Amin.
• After Imam Zaid’s lecture, he addressed one of the most important questions in our day and age: “Should we follow moonsighting, moon calculation or whatever Saudi Arabia says?” He provided the following points which prove the logical choice of moonsighting:

1. After many years of the Saudis giving erroneous sightings, it would not be wise to follow their decisions.
2. The world is divided by the International Date Line, therefore we will always have the ‘Eid and/or the beginning of the month on 2 different days on different parts of the world.
3. We should not connect ‘Eid il Adha with the beginning of Hajj. In the second year of hijra, ‘Eid il Adha was revealed as a celebration for the Muslims. In the tenth year (8 years later!), the rites of Hajj were commanded upon the Muslims. For 8 years, how did the early Muslims define ‘Eid il Adha? Moonsighting!

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf’s and Imam Zaid’s headlining speeches were awe-inspiring. Their call to Muslims around the world to uplift themselves and become a benefit to humanity is an important reminder to us all. Shaykh Abdul Hakim Murad gave another excellent lecture, we will try to decipher our notes and share it here soon, insha’Allah.

Overall highlights for the IslamCrunch team:

• Meeting several family members descended from the noble lineage of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), including the Al-Sagoff, Moumani, Al-Junied and Al-Gilani families.
• Being in the presence and talking to Sidi Yahya Rhodus.
• Spending time with Preacher Moss’ family. Their baby is so cute!
• Meeting Shaykh Faraz Rabbani again. What a blessing to have him as a resource in the West.
• Meeting Abdul-Rehman Malik, Contributing Editor to Q-News. Shared our memories and ties to Singapore.
• Spending some quality (albeit brief) time with Nazim Baksh.
• Finally meeting Haider Ali and Zeeshan Zafar from the UK after many years of email and phone correspondence.
• Sharing meals with our Bay Area friends and San Diego brothers.
• Seeing our RIS family and friends. Special thanks to Waseem, Yasir, Fahad, Asif and Saeed for going the extra kilometre for us.
• UPDATE: Another highlight – seeing our old friend and brother, Sidi Khalil Moore. What a blessing to hear his amazing voice. Check out his project: Seek Sacred Knowledge (We covered SeekSacredKnowledge.com here)