Month: October 2023

(FLOWERBUDNEWS) An expatriate Lebanese man, who comes from a Lebanese Muslim family, wanted his father’s permission to marry an English Christian girl.
The father refused.
Then he said to his father that he will marry her if she becomes a Muslim, and the father agreed to this suggestion.

The son went to the Islamic Library in the Islamic Center in London, and got some books about Islam.
He said to her: “My father refused to consent to our marriage unless you convert to Islam.”
She agreed and demanded to be given four months to study books and understand Islam.

When she finished, the son invited her to come to their house to meet his family.
He was surprised when she came to them wearing a hijab.
She said: “I converted to Islam and I am happy to have taken this decision, but I will not marry you, because you are not a Muslim.
Because what I know about your behaviour, is contrary to my understanding of Islam. Your behaviour with me violates your religion.
You drink alcohol, eat pork, and chase girls. I have visited you before in your home, and I found you all drink alcohol. Also your mother and sisters do not wear the Hijab.
I came to invite you and your family to participate in my wedding ceremony, at the Islamic Center. I am going to marry a young Moroccan man who is committed to his religion of Islam.
I want to thank you for making me know the truth about Islam.”

This situation reminds me of the saying of that old American man, when he said to the young scholar who was telling him the beauties of Islam.
He said to this young man: “We in the West know
Islam, that it holds supreme values, and sublime principles, and we know that it prevents the abuse of alcohol, and prevents harassment of women.
But when we come to your countries we see you drinking alcohol, chasing women, lying, stealing, and circumventing laws.
We do not want speeches and lectures about your religion. Apply them in your life first. We want to see Islam behaviour existing in your life style.

(FLOWERBUDNEWS) Alhaji Saleh Mamman, the Minister of Power has reiterated Federal Government’s determination to address the country`s power challenges.

Mamman gave the assurance while commissioning of a 47.5 solar energy system at the Doka Rural Hospital, in Doka, a community in Kachia Local Government Area of Kaduna State.

He urged  members of the community to protect the facility.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the project was funded by the European Union and implemented by the UKAid in partnership with the Kaduna State Government.

The minister said the project was particularly unique because it was conceived under the technical assistance programme through the Nigerian solar programme.

He added  the project demonstrated how partnership and collaboration among stakeholders could lead to concrete results.

“In this case, the Department for International Development (DFID) partnered with Kaduna state government to develop this project, providing reliable electricity supply.

“This will improve the lives of the people through improved health care, education, water and job creation.

“Our being here today, reflects a deliberate demonstration of the importance both the state and Federal Government attached to the provision of electricity in remote and underserved communities across the country,’’ the minister said.

He said that government intended to use distributed power generation with locally available resource such as solar to achieve the feat, saying that the support received from development partners was appreciated.

Mamman noted that the Federal Government would continue to provide enabling environment in the form of policy and regulatory frameworks and basic infrastructure to ensure the provision of affordable electricity across the country.

The minister said that the Federal Government had developed the required policies and regulatory instruments that allowed for close working relationship with development partners and the private sector.

This, the minister said, was to lay a solid foundation upon which Nigerians would have access to reliable and sustainable electricity supply at affordable prices.

He listed some of the policies to include Rural Electricity Strategy and Implementation Plan, Mini-Grid Regulations, and Sustainable Energy for All.

The minister said new programmes had also been initiated to support off-grid power which included Renewable Energy Micro-Utility, Energy Education Programme and Energising Economy Programme.

He said that at least, 20 new mini-grid projects had been commissioned across the country between 2017 and 2018 which were mostly developed through public private partnership.

“Our grid power generation capacity today is over 7,500 MW, the transmission capacity has also improved to 7,000MW.

“This development is responsible for the improvement in power supply witnessed by customers all over the country recently.

“ Distribution remains the weak link within our system and is receiving the desired attention at optimising her operations for the good of all.

“ It is my believe that with these efforts, we will soon address the problems of power supply to our teeming population, creating new economic and social development for our people,’’ the minister said.

Speaking at the event, Mr Ketil Karlsen, Head of European Union Delegation to Nigeria and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), said affordable reliable energy was key to the development of every society.

He said that it would be impossible to build any economy without energy, saying that renewable energy was part of solution of most of the challenges confronting the country.

Karlsen said the European Union would continue to work with the Federal Government to build a better society for the ordinary citizen.

Dr Hadiza Balarabe who represented the Kaduna state governor at the event, thanked development partners for the project, noting that no society could function without a healthy people.

She said the provision of energy was critical to providing good health and improving health care facilities in the state and across the country generally.

“Solar energy has provided for us a much needed solution to the issue of access to universal basic healthcare for all citizens of Kaduna state.

“Since the installation of the first Kaduna solar for health system in 2017, we have been recording substantial increase in patient attendance at the affected hospitals when compared to others without solar,”  she said. (NAN)

*Lady Evelyn Cobbold*
Born in Edinburgh in 1867 and died in 1963 age 96
She was a British Aristocrat – she was the eldest daughter of Charles Adolphus Murray 7th Earl of Dunmore and Lady Gertrude Coke, daughter of the Second Earl of Leicester. She grew up in the middle east with Muslim nannies and learnt Arabic and although never called herself Muslim she believed she was Muslim. She became a Mayfair socialite. She spent her childhood winters in North Africa where her fascination with Islam developed.
It was only when she visited Italy with a friend and went to see the Pope who asked her if she was Catholic, and although she had never thought about Islam for years she to replied by saying she was Muslim. After that she decided to read up more about Islam and eventually converted. In 1933 she travelled to perform Hajj for the first time, and because there were Europeans who visited Saudi Arabia before her and who were not Muslim penetrated into Mecca and when returning to Europe, they wrote about their daring adventure of performing the hajj as a non muslim, because of this there were restrictions in place for Europeans, but Lady Evelyn who adopted the name Zainab was granted permission to perform the Hajj.
This is her description in her diary of the first time she saw the Kabah and tawaf. “We walk on the smooth marble towards the Holy of Holies, the House of Allah, the great black cube rising in simple majesty, the goal for which millions have forfeited their lives and yet more millions have found heaven in beholding it … the ‘Tawaf’ is a symbol, to use the words of the poet , of a lover making a circuit round the house of his beloved, completely surrendering himself and sacrificing all his interests for the sake of the Beloved. It is in that spirit of self-surrender that the pilgrim makes the ‘Tawaf’”
Her book pilgrimage to Mecca in 1934 is the first Hajj account by an English Woman and her diary also is the oldest record of a trip in hajj taking place via a car from Mina to Arafat. She travelled widely all her life and also wrote another book, ‘Kenya: Land of Illusion’
During the world wars the Muslims that fought for Britain were spending and praying their Eid prayer in Woking Mosque, she was amongst some of the aristocrats in the iconic Eid prayer picture at woking mosque. She was heavily involved in Dawah like William Quilliam amongst the noble English men and women of the time.
She was a fluent Arabic speaker and claimed she had been Muslim all her life and there was no intrinsic moment she converted.
“Islam,” Evelyn later wrote, “is the religion of common sense.” Lady Evelyn’s story about her life, her conversion and her pilgrimage to Mecca are all recorded in her diaries which have recently been republished.
“She was a very lively, eccentric Anglo-Scot Moslem, who loved doing things and loved people as well,” said Major Hope-Cobbold. Her great grandson speaking about her.
Lady Evelyn died in 1963 and was buried, as she stipulated, on a remote hillside on her Glencarron estate in Wester Ross. There was no Muslim in Scotland to perform her Janazah so they contacted Woking Mosque and the Imam drove up in the snow to perform her janazah because she had stipulated she wanted to be buried on a hill on her estate facing Mecca with the following words on her gravestone: “Allahu nur-us-samawati wal ard” (“Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth”) She is buried at her estate in Inverness.
She is part of the British Islamic History, a part of our identity. May Allah(swt) elevate her status in Jannah and reward her for all her deeds Ameen.
Good morning

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(Flowerbudnews.ng)

The messenger of Allah, Sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, visited a man from among the Muslims who had fallen severely ill and he asked him, “Did you use to ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, for anything specific?”

He replied, “I used to say: ‘Oh Allah, whatever you were going to punish me with in the hereafter, punish me with it in this world instead.’”

The Prophet, Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said, “Glory be to Allah, you can’t bear that. Would you not say: ‘Oh Allah, bring us good in this world, and good in the hereafter, and save us from the torment of the fire’?”

It is said that Yusuf ‘alayhi salaam, after being in prison for a long while, said, “Oh my Lord, you have placed me in prison for a long period of time.”

Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala responded, “You asked for prison so we gave you (prison), and had you asked for well-being we would have granted you well-being.”

It is mentioned in the Qur’an as the speech of Yusuf ‘alayhi salaam: “Oh my Lord, prison is more beloved to me than that which they (the wife of the Azeez and the women of the city) call me to.”

Recall, how many times you have uttered something similar?

Imam Al-Mawirdi said, “Your trials are a consequence of that which you utter.”

Be careful with your words, be careful with what your tongues utter, because you will be confronted with what you say. Therefore, choose the best in what you seek from Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and ask Him to give it to you in this world and the next.

In a story which Sheikh Ali At-Tantawi narrates, he says: ‘I was a judge in Syria, and it so happened that a group of us were spending the night with one of our friends when I suddenly found it difficult to breathe and felt severely suffocated.

I sought permission from my companions to leave but they insisted that I stay the night with them. But I couldn’t, and I told them I want to take a walk and inhale some fresh air. I left them, walking by myself in the dark, whereupon I heard the sound of someone weeping and praying coming from behind a small hill.

I looked and found a woman who appeared to be in distress and misery. She was crying effusively and praying sincerely to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala.

I approached her and asked, “What is it that is making you cry, my sister?”

She replied, “My husband is a harsh and unjust man. He threw me out of the house, took my children and swore I will never see them again, and I have nobody and no place to go to.”

“Why don’t you take this to a judge?” I asked.

She continued to cry profusely, “How can a woman like me approach a judge?”’

The sheikh completed the story, crying, ‘The woman says all of this but does not realise that Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala had dragged a judge (meaning himself) by the neck to take him directly to her!’

Glory be to Allah! Who ordered him to leave in the darkness of the night? To stop directly in front of her with his two feet and ask her, he himself (as a judge), about her needs?

What supplication did this simple, poor woman make to have it answered with this speed and in this manner?

Oh you who feels distressed and miserable, who thinks that the world has become dark around him, just raise your hands to the sky, and do not say “How can my problems be solved?”

Rather, humble yourself in front of He who hears the footsteps of the smallest ant.

Be certain, be certain that there is something awaiting you after your patience.

Indeed, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala does not try you with anything except that there is good in it for you, even if you are certain of the opposite.

Soften your heart and be glad.

Were it not for trials and tribulations, Yusuf ‘alayhi salaam would have been spoiled on his father’s lap, but with trials and tribulations he became the Azeez of Egypt.

Do you still feel distress and misery after knowing this?

Be upon certainty that there is something awaiting you after your patience, something which will delight you and make you forget completely the bitterness of all pain.

Oh Lord, whoever opens this message or hears it, open for him the blessings of the provision of the heavens and the earth, and whoever spreads it among Your servants, admit him into paradise without reckoning and punishment, and dispel, oh Lord, his worries and anxiety.’
Ameen! .