Thou shalt not might blog
UPDATE (10 days later): Amazing, I actually received an answer (Ref#: 37CRW6) for my fatwa request. Here it goes:In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
Dear questioner, we would like to thank you for the great confidence you place in us, and we implore Allah Almighty to help us serve His cause and render our work for His Sake. May Allah reward you abundantly for your interest in knowing the teachings of your religion, Islam!
As regards your question, we have asked Dr. Salah Sultan, President of the American Center for Islamic Research, Columbus, Ohio, regarding blogging and he gave the following answer:
“The basic rule in this case is that: whatever is good and attained through a good means, then it is halal (lawful). If you find "blogs" to be a good avenue to make da'wah and you are using noble ways to reach that, then it is permissible. However, if there is no tangible benefit for these websites, then whatever you will be doing is nothing short of wasting time, which is Islamically forbidden in Islam. A Muslim is responsible for his / her time.
So, you can better judge for yourself. If you are exchanging good thoughts, you proceed, if not, you refrain from doing it. But if you find people wasting their time in trivial issues or talking about things of no great concern, then you leave. Allah says: “When thou seest men engaged in vain discourse about Our Signs, turn away from them unless they turn to a different theme. If Satan ever makes thee forget, then after recollection, sit not thou in the company of those who do wrong.” (Al-An'am 6: 68) This means you will be incurring the same sin if you continue doing what they are doing, unless you stay with the purpose of changing the munkar (sinful deed).
In changing the munkar, you must make sure you are capable of doing that and that you will never be influenced or negatively affected by it. I know of a brother whose `aqeedah (belief) was corrupted through these chats, so I advise you to be careful.”
If you are still in need of more information, don't hesitate to contact us. Do keep in touch. May Allah guide us all to the straight path!
Allah Almighty knows best.
=== Original Post Below ===
Via Mohammed at Digressing, an Indian Mufti decided that its unislamic to blog! Huh!Going to websites like these will not be permissible, because they contain personal matters and also they specify names/identities which can create a path for bay-hayaai (shamelessness), and unlawful relations, and It is a source that may leak out the faults/kharaabiyan "aayb" of muslims. It will not be permissible.
Shame on you. How do they come up with these fatwas! I'm not ending my blogging experience now, that's for sure. But I've decided to get a second opinion, so that I maintain my Muslim readership (if any), though I'm sure that no one will listen to this guy.
10 comments:
ramses, I've heard very silly fatwas from arab muftis as well...
It has nothing to do with him being an indian....
That's true. Nothing wrong with him being Indian and a Mufti Ramses. But alot wrong with him passing out fatwas that easily without being informed. Shex reminded me of this story over at his blog:
"One of the well-known Muslim's 'ema in Andulis went with his fellowers on the Hejj trip to Mekka & El-Maddinah. Finishing thier rituals, they went to meet Emam Malek to consult with him regarding thier religious life. They asked him about 50 problems. And out of the 50 Questions he answered on 4 of them only. The 46 remaining he answered back with "I don't know". Emam Malek, One of the Four known Madahheb of islam, answered only for 4 out of 50 questions asked by men who traveled more than 6 months to meet him & ask for his opinion."
As I said in my initial posting, I've asked for another opinion. I've submitted a question on one of these online fatwas. I tried to provide them with enough information that allows them to make a good judgement (only for the sake that they don't sound silly). They haven't come back with an answer yet, and that is probably better, since not even blogging need to have a special fatwa. And it was probably just very silly of me to submit that question in the first place.
No, I'm actually fine with that opinion. Though I don't really like the "better blog for da'awa purposes" part (and for some reason they still seem to think that its about chatting!). Blogging maybe useful for other purposes than just "da'awa". What about just letting your frustrations out, instead of annoying all your "real" friends with that shit.
I didn't really say that my blogging is a waste of time, I said it was silly (and maybe stupid, and useless), and that I quit my part-time job for it.. hmmm. But, this kind of time-waster is better than the other stuff I tend to waste my time in. Atleast I'm really enjoying it, hmm, which is probably a sign that it is a sin. Jeesh, this is getting ugly.
In any case, whoever said I'm a perfect Muslim anyways. May God forgive me, for I am sinning.
'Atleast I'm really enjoying it, hmm, which is probably a sign that it is a sin. Jeesh, this is getting ugly"
Really?
My money's on that scholar not knowing what blogging was.
Bloody hell...da3wa? What da3wa? Are we all goddamned missionaries now? Where does God tell us to spend all of our time proselytising?
can I reproduce your post on my thing? I will cite you, MLA style? Savvy?
OK, times up! I am using your stuff on my blog. I got your permission! lol.. I hope you are kool with that bruva!
Reading the fatwa or opinion over and over, I couldn't help but ask: how does islam 'regard' and define pleasure? Does it recognize any other form of pleasures other than sex and drinking, or the other extreme, pray and make da'wa? Is there ok to just relax, blog and listen to nice music, or will it be considered from satan and under the bracket of 'wasting time.'
If you ask the same dimwit who made the first fatwa, and if you ask a lot of other dimwits, anything outside the scope of prayer, sleep and the occasional unfortunate fornication is a blessing from satan and should by shyed from. It seems they've forgotten the Prophet's saying 'seek knowledge, even if in China' - how that DOESN'T relate to blogging is beyond me for example.
Then again, I look at most hadith with niggling suspicion.
Cairo, "Really?" what? I am enjoying it, really, yes. No its not necessarily a sign of being a sin, not really, I was kidding. Aren't all sins enjoyable though? ;)
Sabrina, ofcourse you can reproduce whatever, and you don't need to cite me.
Anonymous, I don't know why --like Hellme says-- many sheikhs like to make everything so serious and dull. If you're doing anything other than work or prayer, then you're wasting time! Sometimes wasting time is good I guess. Numerous stories of the prophet himself playing around with kids for example. And believe it or not, sex is actually a duty (with your wife/husband ofcourse, if its just that, it would be so dull I know).
Hellme, I was not comfortable with many Hadiths myself. The problem is many weak hadiths are popular because the people like them (or for other reasons). But knowing how the scholars set the criteria to classify authenticity of hadiths, sa7ee7, da3eef, mawdoo3, and some others, is very interesting to say the least.
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