Pasha Hour International:
Live from America!
December 18, 2007
Dr. Pasha
(Bringing Islam to the World One Concept at a Time!
Taking the Qur'an to Every Home and Heart that Needs It --
And which One Does Not?)
PASHA HOUR INTERNATIONAL: LIVE FROM AMERICA! is an international radio program that is now - Mashallah! - in its fourth year of live broadcast.
The program calls itself "PASHA HOUR INTERNATIONAL: LIVE FROM AMERICA! A Radio-Internet Program on Islam, Muslims and the World - Unlike Any!"
To listen to Pasha Hour International go to www.IslamicSolutions.Com and click on Pasha Hour International on the menu to the left.
The radio station from which Pasha Hour International buys its time offers a variety of other programs including film songs, talk shows, political commentary and non-Muslim religious content with which Pasha Hour International has nothing to do.
Payaam-e-Maghrib will Inshallah bring to you content from Pasha Hour International whenever it could.
THANKSGIVING IS US!
Giving thanks to God Almighty - and also to our fellow human beings - what could be wrong with that?
Or in fact, what could be better than that?
If you ask me, the idea of the American Festival of Thanksgiving is fantastic. It is yet another way of saying "Thank You!" to God Almighty.
However, Thanksgiving, as celebrated by the American people, has been misunderstood by many Muslims. Once we cooked a turkey and feasted on it. When we went to Jum'ah prayer on Friday that week, the Imam announced in his Khutbah that celebrating Thanksgiving was forbidden.
The man on the Mimbar (pulpit) didn't seem to know or care that the spirit of Thanksgiving pervaded every aspect of Islam. He forgot that Eid was like Thanksgiving in many ways. That Eid was an occasion when people generally have fun and a lot of good food - and say Alhamdulillah, Mashallah and things like that.
There are different ways of having fun of course: Halaal and Haraam ways; right and wrong ways; good and bad ways; lawful and unlawful ways.
On festive occasions, some people get drunk, become disconnected from their brains, throw off their clothes and think that is the best way to have what Americans call fun.
It is not.
It is in fact a pretty foolish and stupid and self-destructive way to do any thing. It is detrimental to individuals, families, groups and societies. So God has forbidden this way of having fun.
The truth is being Muslim is all about being thankful: thankful to God Almighty and thankful to people, in many ways the crown of his creation - all at the same time. Both intertwined with one another.
FEAR OF GOD AND FEAR OF PEOPLE
But things change. And people change. Sometimes through their own natural course. Sometimes through cataclysmic events that impose change on people.
The dark events of September 11, 2001, as well as their darker results and aftermath, imposed certain fundamental changes on the way Muslims in America think, live life and do business. As a result, American Muslims seem to be catching on to the fact that, turkey or no turkey, Thanksgiving may not be such a bad idea after all.
It is amazing how people would do for fear of man what they would not do for fear of God! But that is human nature for you.
Maybe that is one way God Almighty gets things done from people who wouldn't do them otherwise. Maybe it is a mechanism God Almighty uses to change people who are so deaf, dumb and dull-witted that they wouldn't change otherwise.
Only recently, I visited a Muslim website - I generally stay away from Muslim writings on Islam and Muslims in English - that seems to make a case that the American Thanksgiving may in fact not be such a bad idea after all. That is, Islamically speaking of course.
Welcome home boys. What took you so long? I know what did, but I am just asking.
THANKING GOD AND THANKING PEOPLE: CAN'T HAVE ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER
The fact is thanking God cannot be done without thanking people. Nor does thanking people really mean much without thanking God.
Muslims "pray" five times a day, is that a way of giving thanks to God, a caller on PASHA HOUR INTERNATIONAL asked. Is that a form of Thanksgiving that Muslims do?
And my reply to that caller was: Absolutely, without a question. What is prayer if not a comprehensive way of giving thanks to God Almighty?
Islam is all about giving thanks. If you don't give thanks to God, then forget about being a Muslim. It is as simple as that.
But what we should not forget is that thanking God includes thanking people. That is one of the most amazing equations I found in Islam.
