Tuesday Tales

Today's Islamic lecture was on the Shari'a. The brother giving the lecture was MashaAllah, very learned and he managed to explain difficult concepts in easy terms, giving examples that we all can relate to.
Just some of the points I took down during the lecture:

The Shari'a has somehow been shown to be a system that is cruel and unfair. The western media does its very best to malign the Shari'a, and we are stupid enough to believe it. All you ever hear about in the news are women being stoned, people having their hands amputated.
They focus on the punishment, and NOT the actual purpose of the Shari'a; which is to protect the individual, the society and also the environment.

The Shari'a sanctions the use of one's own judgment. It also recognizes local law as long as there is no contradiction to the Quran or Sunnah.
The Shari'a serves to protect the vital needs of mankind. The vital needs (and some examples) are as follows:

1) Deen: Ensure that it is free of error, protect deen against hostile forces, invite others to accept deen

2) Nafs: Marriage issues

3) Akal (discretion/mind): For example, the Shari'a prohibits the consumption of alcohol as it causes one to get drunk and when you are drunk, you tend to do really stupid things as your senses are dulled, your reflexes become slower etc. Common stupid things include: driving while drunk, making out with stranger while drunk, puking in friend's car while drunk. Besides, we all know the side effects of alcohol consumption.

4) Honour, Chastity: Protect against slander, false accusations.

5)Wealth: Ensure that everyone is earning a lawful living, prevent exploitation

What is Halal is infact something that we do naturally in our daily lives and what is Haram is infact only a small portion of human activities. What is Halal is beneficial to the individual, his society and the environment he lives in while what is Haram is the destruction of the individual, society or environment. However, again we are constantly focussing on the Haram and end up feeling as though we are leading very restricted lives. Is it human nature to focus on the negatives?

Haram activities that are commited because of ignorance, forgetfulness or under duress are not punishable by the Shari'a and the Hereafter.

What is harmful cannot be used to combat another harm. The ends don't justify the means. I can't get rid of the pests in my room by placing food in my housemate's room so that the pests will be attracted to HER room. (Lol, darn it, I was just about to do that...Nah, kidding housemate, you already got too much food in there)

If necessary, adopt the lesser of 2 evils. You are sick and you can't get clean by performing ablution. Don't just skip your prayer. Pray, even when you have not cleaned.

Shari'a allows the meeting of vital needs such as eating of pork when there is no other source of food available to sustain life. However, once halal resources are available, this allowance is removed. Similarly, muslims can buy a house using loans from banks that involve interest. However, once there is a financial source that is halal and does not involve interest then this allowance is again, removed.

Shari'a allows the relaxation of laws in several instances such as the suspension of capital punishment for theft for food by the thief who stole food to feed his starving children.

The Shari'a also laid the foundation for today's modern law system such as the jury, an impassive judge and also punishment for perjury (just to name a few).

MashaAllah, the Shari'a is complete and deals with every aspect of life.

Then today, I witnessed my friend, and now my sister, saying her Shahadah. It is something I will not forget for a really long time. 2 other sisters who also witnessed it suggested that we buy our new sister an abaya. Hurray, I think it is time for some online abaya shopping.