Olive Tree Education

Upcoming Events

A few updates regarding upcoming events involving Olive Tree Education:

1.         Dr. Awadh Binhazim was invited to present a 3 hour talk on Islam to psychologists at their annual Tennessee Psychology Association meeting in Nashville.  It is on Saturday 11/8/08 at 2 – 5 pm at the Nashville Airport Marriot.

For more information about Tennessee Psychology Association, visit their website:  www.tpaonline.org

2.         Olive Tree Education is organizing a presentation at the Tennessee Technology University campus in Cookeville on Issues in the Muslim World – Women in Islam: Myth and Realities.  It is on Monday 11/17/08 at 6 – 8 pm.

For more information about this event, click here.

We are doing this in conjunction with Sister Maha Elgenaidi of the Islamic Networks Group (ING).   ING, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is doing work very similar to Olive Tree Education.

3.         Regular classes on specific topics with the Vanderbilt Students are held regularly.  Next class is on 11/15/08.

4.         Finally Olive Tree Education will be attending the Nashville gathering of Masajids and organizations on Nov 15^th 2008. We will have an important dinner meeting/get-together for the Board members, Trustees, Shura and leaders of the Islamic Centers, Masajid and organizations in the Middle TN area.

It is on Saturday, November 15th 2008 between 4.30 pm and 7.30 pm at the Hampton Inn in Green Hills, 2324 Crestmoor Road, Nashville TN 37215. Belle Meade room, 6th floor.

General Ramadan Information

Ramadan (Arabic: رمضان, Ramaḍān) is a Muslim religious observance that takes place during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and is the month in which the Qur’an began to be revealed. This year, Ramadan is expected to begin on either September 1st or 2nd, depending on the sighting of the moon. It is the Islamic month of fasting, in which Muslims do not eat, drink, or have sexual intercourse from sunrise until sunset. Fasting is meant to teach the person patience and humility. Ramadan is considered the most venerated and blessed month of the Islamic year. Prayers, sawm (fasting), charity, and self-accountability are especially stressed at this time; religious observances associated with Ramadan are kept throughout the month. Laylat al-Qadr, which falls during the last third, commemorates the revelation of the first verses of the Qur’an and is considered the most holy night of the year. Ramadan ends with the holiday Eid ul-Fitr, on which feasts are held. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims are encouraged in increase their acts of worship, especially reading the Qur’an, praying, individual reflection, seeking forgiveness, and refocusing their attention to God. Certain persons are not required to fast during this month, such as pregnant and nursing mothers, the elderly, the sick, etc., and can make up for this in other ways. The benefits of Ramadan are to reconnect with God and come out superior spiritually, as well as morally. We hope you all have a blessed month of Ramadan.

Article: Science in Muslim Countries by Ismail Serageldin

Science 8 August 2008:
Vol. 321. no. 5890, p. 745
DOI: 10.1126/science.1162825
View original article here. 

With more than a trillion dollars in cash and a population of over a billion people, the Muslim world should be poised for a remarkable scientific explosion. Yet despite some very high-profile projects in the Gulf, including the building of massive state-of-the-art facilities for research across all disciplines (and serious efforts elsewhere), the reality is that Muslim countries tend to spend less on scientific research itself, as distinct from buildings and equipment, as compared to other countries at the same income scale. Furthermore, even where funding for science has been available, the results in terms of output—research papers, citations, and patents—are disappointingly low. Why?

Throughout the Muslim world, we are witnessing an increasingly intolerant social milieu that is driven by self-appointed guardians of religious correctness, who inject their narrow interpretation of religion into all public debates. Rejecting rationality or evidentiary approaches, they increasingly force dissenting voices into silence and conformity with what they consider acceptable behavior. Of course, Muslim zealots are not alone in challenging the scientific enterprise; in the United States, battles over evolution and creationism continue to rage.

Yet it was our Muslim forefathers who first held up the torch of rationality, tolerance, and the advancement of knowledge throughout the dark ages of medieval Europe. Centuries before the European scholars Bacon, Descartes, and Galileo considered the scientific method, the great thinker Ibn Al-Haytham (10th century) laid down the rules of the empirical approach, describing how the scientific method should operate through observation, measurement, experiment, and conclusion, the purpose being to “search for truth, not support of opinions.” Likewise, Ibn Al-Nafis (13th century) stressed the importance of accepting contrarian views, subject to the test of evidence and rational analysis.

This is the Muslim tradition that must be revived if current efforts are to bear the scientific fruit that a billion Muslims need and that the world has a right to expect of us. Rejecting politicized religiosity and reviving these traditions would promote the values of science in our societies.

There is a central core of universal values that any truly modern society must possess, and these are very much the values that science promotes: rationality, creativity, the search for truth, adherence to codes of behavior, and a certain constructive subversiveness. Science requires much more than money and projects. Science requires freedom: freedom to enquire, to challenge, to think, and to envision the unimagined. We must be able to question convention and arbitrate our disputes by the rules of evidence. It is the content of scientific work that matters, not the persons who produced it, regardless of the color of their skin, the god they choose to worship, the ethnic group they were born into, or their gender. These are the values of science, but even more, they are societal values worth defending, not just to promote the pursuit of science but to have a better and more humane society.

The future can be bright, but it requires a commitment to fight for the values of science and to reject obscurantism, fanaticism, and xenophobia. It requires that members of the scientific and academic communities in Muslim countries be willing to challenge accepted populist views and insist on creating the “space of freedom” necessary for the practice of science and the advancement of knowledge. We must engage with the media and the public and defend the values of science in our societies. These efforts will not be easy, but they constitute a major and necessary step toward liberating minds from the tyranny of intolerance, bigotry, and fear, and opening the doors to free inquiry, tolerance, and imagination.

Assembly of Muslim Jurist of America (AMAJ): Moon Sighting Issue

***You can download a copy of this article by clicking here.

With the days of Ramadhan and Eid-ul-fitr approaching, the usual commotion around the beginning of Ramadhan and the end of Ramadan will be apparent. The same disagreement about the Shawal moon sighting and declaring the end of Ramadan is prevalent across the Muslim communities in North America.  AMJA would like first to extend its warm congratulation for Eid-ul-fitr to the Muslim Ummah, all over the world and especially in the US and Canada. AMJA also strongly emphasizes the importance of unity amongst ourselves, and encourages the Muslims to rise above their disagreements. To be united is always better than to be divided, if our unity is based on our obedience to ALLAH (SWT). AMJA would like to draw all of our attentions towards the basic fact of the matter, which is that the issue of moon sighting as a whole is among the debatable issues from a jurisprudential (Fiqh) point of view. The details of the issue are as follows:

 Whether to consider: Ittihad-ul-Matali`:

Does the command of ALLAH in the verse “whomever witnesses the month, then he should fast it” and in the Hadeeth of the Prophet (PBUH) “Fast when you see it (the new moon of Ramadan)) and stop fasting when you see it (the new moon of Shawal)” refer to the entire Ummah simultaneously or to each individual country to locality. If the command refers to the entire Ummah, then wherever the moon is sighted, it becomes obligatory on all the Muslims to start (or stop) fasting (Ittihad-ul-Matali`), as long as the other countries share at least a part of the night with the place in which the moon was sighted. If the command refers to the different localities then every location need to seek their own sighting (Ikhtilaf-ul-Matali).

 The recommendations and rulings from the third conference of the assembly of Islamic research, held in Cairo, Egypt in September 1966 (Jumada-Al-Akher 1386) adopted Ittihad-ul-Matali` methodology, based on the condition mentioned above (sharing part of the night). If the two localities do not have any part of the night common, then different moon sightings need to be sought. Similar ruling (Ittihad-ul-Matali`) was also adopted by the assembly of Muslim Jurist of the Islamic Summit Conference, held in Amman 1407. 

Should the scientific (astronomical) visibility calculations be adopted?

It should be used to prove the validity of the eye sighting, but cannot be used as a sole source to start or to end any lunar month, this was the conclusion reached the same conference held in Cairo, Egypt in 1386:

- Eye sighting is the way that should be used to decide on the start of the month, if this sighting is reliable.

- The reliability of the sighting is collaborated by either a shared sighting between a large group of people, or even one single individual, be it male of female, if the sighting does not contradict decisive scientific visibility calculations. 

 The ruling regarding whoever sighted the moon himself, but his sighting was not adopted by the group of Mulsims for any reason?

The particular individual can either follow his own sighting or he can follow the group. Both opinions were expressed by Muslim Scholars, however the majority of scholars has adopted the second opinion, for the Hadeeth of the Prophet (PBUH) that says “The beginning of Ramadan is when you begin fasting, and the Eid day is when you stop fasting and Adha day is when you slaughter your animals (Eid-ul-Adha)” which basically means that deciding the begging and/or end of the month is a group decision, once it is reached by the group, it should be adopted by all of the individual members of that group.

 The previous paragraphs briefly summarized the jurisprudential differences about the issue of the sighting. The golden rule in such matters where there is a genuine acceptable difference of opinions is that there should be no condemnation in such debatable issues. A Muslim should simply follow any of the two opinions as adopted by his country or community, even if he believes that the other opinion is closer to the truth.

 AMJA also favors the opinion that the individual should differentiate between starting Ramadan and starting Shawal. If he witnesses the crescent of Ramadan is a sighting that was not adopted by the community he should fast himself, in secret such that he would not stir controversy around himself. However if he witnessed the beginning of Shawal in a sighting that was not adopted by the community then he should continue to fast this one extra day with the group.

 The issue of adopting a moon sighting is a governmental issue in the first place, meaning that the authority or government is the only entity that is capable of settling the dispute, by adopting one stand versus the other. Disagreement with the accepted legal authority is a form of rebellion that is inexplicable. It is the absence of such a counseling or governmental authority that keeps the dispute in the issue dragging. Only such an authority can settle the disagreement and end the debate.

 And due to the lack of such an authority, it became prudent upon AMAJ to adopt the ruling of Ittihad-ul-Matali`. Whenever the new Ramadan moon is sighted in a country or locality and the sighting was consequently adopted by that country, it becomes mandatory to start the fasting in all countries that share at least a part of the night with the sighting country. Unless of course that the country that is adopting the sighting has been known to go against the consensus of the Ummah for its own political Agenda. This is the easiest to implement and most correct methodology to adopt for Muslims living in the west. A direct contact should be established with the scholars in charge of adopting the Fatwa in that country to verify their acceptance of the sighting. AMJA delegates adopting scientific visibility calculations as part of adopting the sighting to the particular country with the sighting (at least from a practical point of view) for the following reasons: 

 This is the same opinion adopted by the majority of scholars, and was recommended by the authoritative scholars.

 The argument for Ikhtilaf-ul-Matali` is no longer valid with the huge advancement in communications technology.  News travel across the globe in a matter of seconds.

 This opinion is closer to achieve an important goal of this religion, which is uniting the Muslims.

This opinion does not favor a country or create any form or regional tension, whichever country adopts a sighting, all countries, and communities should follow. 

 Removing whatever hardship arising because of Ikhtilaf-ul-Matali` in Eid-ul-Adha if the local sighting is different from the sighting in Mecca. The followers of this opinion will have one of two choices: either to disagree with the pilgrims, breaking the global Muslim unity, or to agree with the pilgrims and leave their opinion.

Why did AMJA not adopt the Ikhtilaf-ul-Matali opinion?`

For a number of reasons among which:

 It is a weaker opinion from a Fiqh point of view, as mentioned above.

 Outside Muslim countries, it is difficult from a practical point of view to gather around one single entity in our current circumstances, due to the prevalent differences of opinions, priorities, and local conditions.

 The extreme difficulty faced during Dul-Hija moon sighting, it is now a global consensus that people follow the pilgrimage in that particular situation. Breaking such a practical consensus is very ill advised. Even strict followers of this opinion, adopt the sighting in Mecca for these reasons, even that this is completely against their methodology.

 The difference of opinions about adopting the scientific visibility calculations, even though AMJA favors the opinion that these calculations should be used to reject an impossible sighting, but cannot be used as the sole source to rely on for a beginning of the month.

 - Above all; our aim is only to please ALLAH (SWT), we only seek his guidance.

Assembly of Muslim Jurist of America (AMJA) can be found on the internet at the following link - http://www.amjaonline.com/index.php

AMJA Members:  

Please see these links for the list of scholars

http://www.amjaonline.com/members.php

http://www.amjaonline.com/members_2.php