MUSLIM MEDIA

Freshers' fair students are bombarded with leaflets promoting Muslim extremists who call for homosexuals to be killed and say the punishment for mocking Allah is death

•    Students at some London universities were given leaflets promoting extremists
•    An event sponsored by the AlMaghrib Institute was advertised at a freshers' fair
•    One of the speakers at the O2 arena event called for homosexuals to be killed

By Abe Hawken For Mailonline
PUBLISHED: 16:06 EDT, 16 October 2017

University students are being bombarded with leaflets promoting Muslim extremists who have called for homosexuals to be killed.

Student societies across London have distributed posters featuring organisations which have promoted extremist beliefs.

The freshers' fairs, hosted by student unions on university campuses in September and October, allow a range of societies to hand out promotional literature.

An event called the 'ILMFest' was advertised and the conference is being sponsored by Islamic studies institute, the AlMaghrib Institute, which was founded in Texas.

The institute has been embroiled in a number of controversies after some of its students were later involved of terror plots.

Terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to detonate explosives on a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit in 2009 took a class at the AlMaghrib Institute, according to CNN.

It also received public scrutiny for selling recordings of Anwar al-Awlaki, a cleric in Al-Qaeda, at their events. However, in 2009 the institute banned the recordings.

Next month's event will take place at the O2 Arena in London and speakers such as Omar Suleiman, Yasir Qadhi, Yayha Ibrahim, and Abu Eesa Niamutullah are all set to address the audience.

Student Rights has been reviewing the content handed out to students and their research manager is urging universities to do more to protect 'vulnerable' people from 'inappropriate material'.

One of the people due to speak at the event is Mr Suleiman, an Islamic preacher, who previously called homosexuality a 'disease' and a 'repugnant shameless sin'.

Meanwhile, Mr Qadhi said that to 'kill … the homosexual – this is also our religion', and that 'to make fun of Allah and his Messenger, the punishment is death'.

Mr Ibrahim has said: 'Allah gives us almost an advice by warning us of who our enemies are… never will the Christians and the Jews be satisfied or content or pleased with you until you follow them and their religion'.

Mr Niamutullah added: 'The Ummah (Muslim community) 'is our primary identity' and that 'liberal people who call themselves Muslims are the biggest danger within our community at the moment'.

Richard Black, Research Manager of Student Rights, urged British universities to do more.

He said: 'Universities should make more rigorous checks to make sure extremist and inappropriate material does not target young and potentially vulnerable people'.

MailOnline has contacted the AlMaghrib Institute for comment.

Students Rights, a project of The Henry Jackson Society, describes itself as being a 'non-partisan group dedicated to supporting equality, democracy and freedom from extremism on university campuses'.

Israelis shut Palestinian Islamic Jihad station

March 11, 2016
The Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli forces on Friday raided a TV station run by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad in the West Bank as part of a crackdown to curb months of violence that Israel says has been fueled by incitement in the Palestinian media.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the head of the Falestine al-Youm — or “Palestine Today” — was detained in the raid in Ramallah early Friday morning. She said Farouq Elayan, 34, had been incarcerated in the past for activities in the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad group. The outlet, which also publishes material on social media sites, encouraged Palestinians to attack Israelis, she said.

In a statement, Falestine al-Youm said two other two staff members had also been arrested and that their equipment was confiscated. Islamic Jihad has carried out suicide bombings and shootings in the past.

Samri said shutting the station was part of efforts to stop incitement to violence. The raid came as Israel struggles to contain near-daily Palestinian assaults on civilians and security forces that have killed 28 Israelis and two Americans since September.

Teen Otniel knife terrorist influenced by Palestinian Authority TV

01.27.2016
Jerusalem Post

Palestinian teenager who murdered Israeli mother of six saw TV incitement leading him to kill, investigation finds.

The 15-year-old Palestinian terrorist who stabbed mother-of-six Dafna Meir to death on January 19 in the West Bank community of Otniel was under the influence of broadcasts by Palestinian Authority TV, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) investigation has found.

A statement released on Sunday on the progress of the investigation said the minor, who was arrested in his home in Beit Amra, near Hebron, disclosed during questioning that “in the period of time preceding the terrorist attack,” he watched “PA television, which presented Israel as a state that ‘kills Palestinian youths.’” On the day of the attack, “under the influence of the content he saw on television, the minor decided to carry out a stabbing attack in order to murder a Jewish person.”

Due to Otniel’s proximity to his home village, the minor chose to strike there. After arriving at Otniel, he spotted Meir and stabbed her repeatedly before fleeing.

The terrorist incident “underscores, once again, the severity of the threat posed by the wild incitement that is ongoing against the state of Israel and Jews in the Palestinian media, which influences lone attackers and causes them to carry out acts of murder and terrorism,” the ISA added.

Last week, following intensive intelligence and operational activities, Duvdevan unit members accompanied by Shin Bet intelligence agents tracked down the suspect. They moved in on the teenager’s home overnight between Monday and Tuesday, arresting him in his bed and taking him into custody.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon last week paid tribute to Dafna Meir, a “virtuous woman” whose many remarkable accomplishments became known to the public in recent days, he said.

“The great loss is even more prominent in light of the cruelty of the 15-year-old murderer, who grew up in an environment that taught him from the time he was a baby to hate, and to sanctify death – as did the youth who recently carried out an attempted murder in Tekoa. This is the result of the kind of education in the PA from infancy through kindergartens and schools. This is the outcome,” Ya’alon said.

Ya’alon praised the work of the IDF and the Shin Bet in capturing the terrorist.

“There is a wave of terrorism. We will know how to defeat it, I have no doubt. It requires determination and awareness, but eventually we will defeat it,” he said.

The head of the Islam Channel, Britain’s most popular Muslim television station, has been arrested in South Africa and faces deportation to Tunisia over terrorism allegations.

The Times disclosed more than a year ago that Mohamed Ali Harrath, a Scotland Yard adviser against Islamic extremism, was wanted by Interpol because of his alleged activities in his homeland. His arrest on Sunday after a flight from London is being blamed by supporters on a security clampdown by the South African authorities in the run-up to this summer’s World Cup.

Harrath, 46, is the force behind the Islam Channel, which is watched by 59 per cent of British Muslims and beamed by satellite to 132 countries. He has been fêted by politicians, with the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, the minister Shahid Malik and the Tory frontbencher Dominic Grieve attending his annual festival. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, gave him a platform to address thousands in Trafalgar Square in September at the official taxpayer-funded event to mark the end of Ramadan. Harrath, who has a heart condition, collapsed during his arrest and is being treated at Eugene Marais hospital in Pretoria, where he is under police guard. The broadcaster has been convicted in absentia of numerous criminal and terrorism-related offences by Tunisian courts and sentenced to 56 years in prison.

The Islam Channel last night accused Tunisia of using Interpol to harass and intimidate Harrath.

Before fleeing his homeland, he co-founded the Tunisian Islamic Front, which Tunis accused of seeking to establish a Muslim state by armed revolutionary violence. Harrath insists that the organisation was a non-violent political party set up to oppose what he regarded as Tunisia’s one-party rule.

At Tunisia’s request, he has been on an Interpol Red Notice, its highest form of alert, since 1992 but was allowed into Britain in 1995 and accepted as a refugee.

He flew into Oliver Tambo airport in Johannesburg on Sunday for what the Islam Channel described as a business trip. He was arrested when his documents were scanned. Harrath will either be returned to Britain or sent to Tunisia, which has an extradition treaty with Pretoria. An emergency High Court application on behalf of the Islam Channel prevented him being returned straight to Tunisia. A full court hearing will be held tomorrow. Tunisia will have to give assurances over his treatment before he is returned.

South Africa takes requests from fellow African states seriously and has detained Sudanese and Rwandan officials wanted for alleged human rights violations. Security at South African airports is extremely tight before the World Cup amid persistent fears of terrorist attacks.

Iqbal Jassat, chairman for the Media Review Network, an Islamic rights organisation which has been advising the TV channel, said: “We have concerns that the authorities in South Africa are on a heightened state of alert because of the hype around possible terror attacks during the World Cup. We fear that could cause the victimisation of respectable people.”

The British High Commission confirmed Harrath’s arrest and said it was watching the situation closely.

The Quilliam Foundation, a British anti-extremist think-tank, has accused the Islam Channel of allowing speakers to promote intolerant and bigoted intepretations of their faith.

By MARK DUBOWITZ and ROBERTA BONAZZI
From today's Wall Street Journal Europe
February 18, 2009

Their propaganda notwithstanding, Hamas and, two years ago, Hezbollah suffered devastating military defeats that may diminish their ability to attack Israel with rocket fire. But these Iranian-backed terrorist organizations are deploying another dangerous weapon in their war against Western democracies -- terrorist television stations.

Thanks to Arab satellite companies, Hezbollah's al-Manar and Hamas's al-Aqsa TV stations can still beam their incitement and hatred into European living rooms, radicalizing Muslim immigrants throughout the Continent.

Al-Manar, however, is not a mere propaganda tool. Founded in 1991 by Hezbollah guerillas, it is an operational weapon in the hands of a deadly terrorist organization. Following a 2006 letter to then-President George W. Bush signed by a majority of the U.S. Senate, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Treasury Department designated al-Manar as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity. This designation placed, for the first time, a media outlet on the same terrorism list as al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah itself.

The designation highlighted the role of al-Manar as more than just a station with objectionable content. The Hezbollah outlet was actively involved in recruiting and fund raising for Hezbollah, and providing preoperational surveillance for terror attacks. Undersecretary of Treasury Stuart Levey has observed that al-Manar is an "entity maintained by a terrorist group" and is therefore "as culpable as the terrorist group itself."

Europe has also taken several steps against al-Manar. In 2004, the European Union and the governments of France, Spain and Holland determined that al-Manar violated a European law prohibiting incitement to hatred in broadcasting. This encouraged European satellite providers Eutelsat, Globecast, Hispasat and New Skies Satellite to cease transmission of the station.

Five non-European satellite providers have ended their broadcast of al-Manar, and multinational corporations discontinued about $4 million in annual advertising on the channel after their ad buys on Hezbollah television were exposed. In December 2008, two U.S. residents pleaded guilty in Southern District Court in New York to material support for Hezbollah after they were found to be broadcasting al-Manar and selling satellite equipment.

Yet the Saudi-based, Arab League-owned Arabsat and the Egyptian government-owned Nilesat still allow al-Manar to broadcast incitement and violence to Europe's Muslim population on their satellites. During the 2006 Danish cartoon controversy, for example, Hezbollah's Sheikh Nasrallah urged al-Manar's viewers "to take a decisive stand." He said that "hundreds of millions of Muslims are ready and willing to sacrifice their lives in order to defend the honor of their Prophet. And you are among them."

Al-Manar has become alarmingly popular with Europe's young Arabic-speaking Muslims. On one German television program, young Muslims in Berlin cited al-Manar as a factor influencing their hatred of the U.S. and Jews. In November 2008, Germany banned the terrorist station on the basis that it promoted the use of violence. This ban prohibits al-Manar from doing business in the country, although its hate and incitement are still accessible in Germany via Arabsat and Nilesat.

Hamas, designated by both Europe and the U.S. as a terrorist entity, followed al-Manar and took its own brand of jihad to the airwaves in 2006. Today, Hamas's al-Aqsa television disseminates its violent message on Arabsat. Eutelsat, France's leading satellite operator and the world's third-largest satellite company, also began broadcasting al-Aqsa on its Atlantic Bird 4 and Eurobird 2 satellites, enabling Hamas to incite, recruit and raise funds throughout Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

Al-Aqsa TV is notorious for its uninterrupted speeches of Hamas leaders calling for suicide bombings, for its youth-oriented music videos that incite viewers to murder, and programs aimed at children which glorify suicide bombers. Faced with world-wide outcry for using Disney-like characters, the show's producers dropped the Mickey Mouse character -- they told kids that Israel had killed the popular rodent -- and found bees, bunnies and other animals to tout the virtues of jihad.

Policy makers, law enforcement officials and regulators should be worried about al-Aqsa, but so should every European parent. One haunting music video produced by al-Aqsa shows a mother preparing a bomb in her bedroom. Her young daughter naively asks whether she is bringing her a toy. Mama leaves home and explodes on her suicide mission. Her child says, "Instead of me, you carried bombs in your hand. . . . Only now I know what was more precious than me." The little girl continues, "My love for Muhammad will not be merely words. I am following mama in her steps."

Another broadcast shows mothers donning suicide belts and calling on women and girls to blow themselves up. The "martyrs" are assured that the "Zionist Entity" will be destroyed.

Al-Aqsa is an integral part of Hamas's global strategy of radicalizing Muslims, subverting the peace process, raising funds for future attacks, and disseminating propaganda in the Palestinian territories and beyond. Like al-Manar, it is an operational weapon in the hands of a deadly terrorist organization.

While "free speech" activists decry action against these terrorist media outlets, European officials should recall prior campaigns against enemy media outlets. In 1999, during the Kosovo war, NATO planes bombed the Belgrade-based headquarters of Radio Television of Serbia. While 16 employees were killed, NATO defended the action as a legitimate attack against Serbian broadcasting of Slobodan Milosevic's violent call to arms against Kosovo's Muslims.

European states also have prosecuted hate speech as a war crime, first at the Nuremberg trials against Nazi officials after World War II and then at an international court in Tanzania in 2003, when three Rwandan media executives were convicted of running a radio station and publishing a newspaper calling for the systematic extermination of Rwanda's Tutsis. In supporting the convictions, Reed Brody, legal counsel to Human Rights Watch, said, "If you fan the flames, you'll have to face the consequences."

Europe can act against Hamas TV under its own legal authority governing television broadcasting. France should enforce the warning its own audiovisual authority issued on Dec. 2, 2008, warning Eutelsat that al-Aqsa programming violates French communications law. Eutelsat's recent decision to stop distributing al-Aqsa on only one of its satellites is not sufficient compliance, and Eutelsat should be held accountable for its continued broadcasting of al-Aqsa.

In his inaugural address, President Barack Obama called for "a new way forward" with the Muslim world. But he also called for a strong defense against those who "seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents" and addressed leaders "who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West." Working with Cairo and Riyadh to cease satellite broadcasts of these Iranian-backed, terrorist-owned media channels is key to addressing the radicalization threat in Europe for the continent's leaders. But France should first get its own terrorist-media house in order.

Mr. Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Ms. Bonazzi, executive director of the European Foundation for Democracy, are co-directors of the Coalition Against Terrorist Media.

LOS ANGELES -- In late 2001, three months before my son, the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, was kidnapped, he interviewed the influential Qatari cleric Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and asked him about suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. The sheik replied with a novel twist of logic. "Israeli society in general is armed," he said, implying that Israeli civilians -- including women and children, doctors and journalists -- are legitimate targets.

At the time, it was still surprising to see an authoritative Muslim cleric give religious license to the ideology of terror -- granting the faithful permission to elevate their own grievances above the norms of civilized society.

Daniel would fall victim to that same ideology when he was abducted and murdered in Pakistan. After his death, I discovered that Sheik Qaradawi is the host of a weekly program on the Qatar-based TV news network Al Jazeera called "Sharia and Life."

He uses this forum to preach his new morality to millions of Arabic-speaking viewers, including Hamas operatives, al-Qaida recruits, schoolteachers and impressionable Muslim youths. "We have the 'children bomb,' and these human bombs must continue until liberation," he told his audience in 2002. Consistent with this logic and morality, Sheik Qaradawi later extended his Quranic blessing to suicide bombing against American civilians in Iraq.

A few in the Arab world have taken issue with his calls for violence. Al Ittihad, a newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, editorialized in 2004 that the beheading of two American hostages in Iraq happened "in direct response to Qaradawi's fatwa and incitement, which permits the killing of American civilians." Yet few, in the Middle East or the West, seem willing to condemn Al Jazeera's management for giving the cleric regular airtime.

None of this might seem to matter much to Americans except that for two months now Al Jazeera has been taking its mixture of news coverage and extremist propagandizing to our front door through an English-language station. Called Al Jazeera English, the network can be received via satellite or streamed over the Internet. It has bureaus in London and Washington, and has recruited such high-profile Western journalists as Sir David Frost as correspondents.

In part, this is promising. The Arabic version of Al Jazeera and its various spinoffs on satellite TV and the Internet are usually credited with having a positive influence on Arab society. True, Al Jazeera's coverage has placed an emphasis on younger leaders, reformers and successful businessmen who may serve as role models for today's Arab youth. And it has brought -- as the press usually does -- a degree of inquisitiveness and openness that could become a useful engine of reform in the region.

Westerners have been quick to point out these benefits. A critic for the Times said that "though Al Jazeera English looks at news events through a non-Western prism, it also points to where East and West actually meet." Time magazine noted, "arguably nothing -- including the Bush administration's panoply of democratization programs -- has done more than Al Jazeera to open minds and challenge authority in the Middle East."

But what should concern Westerners is that the ideology of men like Sheik Qaradawi saturates many of the network's programs, and is gaining wider acceptance among Muslim youths in the West. In its "straight" news coverage on its Arabic TV broadcasts and Web sites, Al Jazeera's reports consistently amplify radical Islamist sentiments (although without endorsing violence explicitly).

For example, the phrase "war on terror" is invariably preceded by the contemptuous prefix "so-called." The words "terror" and "insurgency" are rarely uttered with a straight face, usually replaced with "resistance" or "struggle." The phrase "war in Iraq" is often replaced by "war on Iraq" or "war against Iraq." A suicide bombing is called a "commando attack" or, occasionally, a "paradise operation."

Al Jazeera's Web site can be less subtle. On Dec. 12, after religious leaders and heads of state all over the world condemned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran for staging a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran, the headline on the site read, "Ahmadinejad Praised by Participants of the Holocaust Conference in Tehran, but Condemned by Zionists in Europe."

In short, Al Jazeera's editors choreograph a worldview in which an irreconcilable struggle rages between an evil-meaning Western oppressor and its helpless, righteous Arab victims. Most worrisome, perhaps, it often reports on supposed Western conspiracies behind most Arab hardships or failings, thus fueling the sense of helplessness, humiliation and anger among Muslim youths and helping turn them into potential recruits for terrorist organizations.

The question is, to what extent will this pathological worldview infiltrate Al Jazeera's English channel, which is still trying to find its voice? David Marash, a former "Nightline" correspondent who is the American anchor on Al Jazeera English, acknowledges such a possibility, but dismisses the responsibility of the network.

"Undoubtedly, some Al Jazeera programs may have inspired some social misfits to undertake terrorism," he told The New York Sun.

Still, with the growing number of social misfits in society, and the growing confusion between "information" and deception in the news media, the danger of fueling combustible anger in some viewers cannot be ignored, especially when pumped subliminally by well-respected Western anchors.

Let's face it: When a terrorist attack is described as a "martyrdom" in a thick Middle Eastern accent, it can be dismissed by Americans as a peculiarity of cultural differences. But imagine the effect of the word if spoken in David Frost's cultured British tones. This is why, even if Al Jazeera English waters down its alarmist content, it should still be seen as a potential threat: it will bestow respectability upon the practices of its parent network in Qatar, which continues, among other things, to broadcast Sheik Qaradawi's teachings.

I wouldn't call for banning Al Jazeera English in the United States even if that were possible. It is important to extend a hand to the network because it can become a force for good; but it is as important for our news organizations to scrutinize its content and let its viewers know when anti-Western wishes are subverting objective truth. As Al Jazeera on the whole feels the heat of world media attention, we can hope that it will learn to harness its popularity in the service of humanity, progress and moderation.

Its hard to laugh at closed-minded extremism

09/15/2007

Jonathan Gurwitz
San Antonio Express-News

I know satire. I've worked with satire. So I am completely confident in telling the Muslim Student Association at UTSA and videographer SaadImam that "The Missing Hijab 2 & the Jew" is not an example of satire.

The film clip was made at UTSA's University Center at the annual freshmen Involvement Fair, which took place Aug. 29 and 30.

SaadImam, who is not a UTSA student and who declined to provide his legal name to me, was present at the invitation of the Muslim Student Association, ostensibly to produce videos documenting misperceptions and ignorance about Islam.

However, in this film — formerly featured on YouTube and SaadImam's Web site, DawahWorks.com — the loquacious SaadImam conducts an interview with a young woman who identifies herself as being Muslim. Actually, interview isn't the proper word. It's a video assault, a la Michael Moore, on the young woman's lack of Muslim virtue.

SaadImam queries the woman about her failure to wear the hijab, the traditional Muslim head covering. Not expecting to be accosted about her religiosity at a university event, she is obviously flustered by the line of questioning. And in between her muddled answers, SaadImam intersperses Koranic commentary to illustrate why she is an ignorant and unobservant Muslim.

The clip concludes with a similarly mocking interview of a Jewish student. SaadImam asks about head coverings for women in the Jewish tradition. The inquiry inordinately dwells on the extent of the covering. As the student turns to show with his hand an approximate length, SaadImam's camera focuses in a peculiar way on his neck.

Then SaadImam asks, "What would you think is the biggest accomplishment of the Jews in America?" Before the student can answer, SaadImam begins muttering, "9-11."

If it were the Young Conservatives berating Muslim women for not wearing the hijab or a Christian group alluding that 9-11 was Islam's greatest accomplishment in America, you can be sure that the outcry from the self-styled gatekeepers of tolerance and diversity would have been greater than the silence that has greeted this outrage.

Instead, it is bloggers at LittleGreenFootballs.com and ProteinWisdom.com who have brought the video to light. And in the ensuing controversy, SaadImam removed it both from his YouTube account and his Web site at the request of the Muslim Student Association.

In an interview with Express-News reporter Melissa Ludwig, SaadImam said the video was a joke. "Even if it is supposed to be funny," said Yusif Mohammad, president of the Muslim Student Association, "I feel it is inappropriate."

In an interview with me, Mohammad seemed genuinely appalled at the content of the video. But he shouldn't have been surprised. He appears as a performer in some of SaadImam's productions going back as far as eight months. Though he claims he isn't familiar with SaadImam's video tactics and religious beliefs, he should have been.

In "Eid Adha & the Missing Hijab," SaadImam bullies another young Muslim woman about not wearing the hijab.

"I think you can still be a good Muslim without the hijab," she says.

SaadImam scoffs at her individualism. A woman without the hijab is like a cheap piece of jewelry that anyone can have.

Then there is the series "Polygynously Speaking," in which SaadImam explains and advocates multiple wives for men. "We have sisters who make polygyny haraam (prohibited) by threatening their husbands with divorce and custody battle. It would seem that they would rather their husbands have a girlfriend than to take on a second wife."

The bit about threatened husbands is rich coming from a man whose life, according to the biography on his own blog, was filled with violence and a prison sentence for attempted murder prior to his conversion to Islam.

And there is the video "Islam & Democracy," in which SaadImam tells viewers that Islam is not democracy, Islam does not contain democracy and Islam and democracy cannot coexist. "Neither can the wolf and sheep coexist in harmony," he says, "as with Islam and democracy."

None of this is satire. It's closed-minded, religious extremism, the kind that threatens liberal society everywhere — not least in the Islamic world — and its purveyors are particularly out of place on an American college campus.

Reflect on Allah’s verses

21 September, 2007
Reflect on Allah’s verses
Gulf Times

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, may His Salaah and Salaam be upon His Last Messenger Muhammad, to proceed:

Indeed to reflect on Allah’s verses is a form of worship that will draw one close to Allah Most High. This reflection is not a reckless and wandering one, rather it includes a study of the classical tafseer of the verses being pondered over, as this would fulfil Ibnul-Qayyim’s great advice, “Such as reflecting over a book which a person has memorised and he expounds it so that he may understand what its author intends by it.”

Indeed the Book of Allah is not a book like any other, it is the timeless Speech of Allah, not a created thing, the study guide for life and death and what comes after. Therefore it deserves a more careful study than anyone else’s speech. It necessitates that its reader return to the early narrations of those who witnessed its revelation and heard its explanation by the one deputed by Allah to rehearse and explain His Words to humanity (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam).

For if one would try to ponder over the meanings of the verses without having done this study, then surely the filth of the time that he lives in and his ignorance of the correct application and understanding that the early Muslims had would cause him to understand some things not intended by Allah Most High, and therefore he would go astray, thinking to be worshipping Allah. So every sincere Muslim who hopes to earn Allah’s Love by reciting and reflecting over Allah’s Book, then let him hold tight to the meanings explained by the Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam), and those taught by the companions and their immediate followers, and the early scholars of Islam.

So dear brother and sister Muslim! Know that reciting and pondering over the Book of Allah, devoting your time regularly to its study and implementation has tremendous benefits in this life and the Next, so let us now look to just a few of them to attach ourselves more firmly to Allah’s Majestic Words. Each benefit stands as enough of an encouragement to shun any laziness we have and dedicate ourselves to the Qur’an.

1. Reading and reflecting over the Qur’an fulfils an Islamic duty.
Indeed the Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) summarised this Religion with his statement: “The Religion is naseehah (sincerity)!” So then Tameem ibn Aws, may Allah be pleased with him, then said, “We asked, ‘To whom?’” He said: “To Allah, HIS BOOK, His Messenger, the leaders of the people, and their common folk.” [Muslim]

The sincerity that is due to the Book of Allah includes its regular recitation, learning the rules of tajweed and reciting it beautifully, learning about its tafseer and the reasons for its revelation, affirming that it is the Truth, the perfect Speech of Allah and not part of the creation, honouring it and defending it, abiding by the orders and prohibitions found in it, teaching it and calling to it.
So by reading and reflecting over the Qur’an, one fulfils an obligation and is rewarded for that. Upon fulfilling this obligation, the Qur’an then becomes a proof for him on the Day of Judgment! And that is our second benefit we will take by embracing this Noble Book...

2. The Qur’an will be a proof for us on the Day of Judgment.
This is due to the statement of the Messenger: “And the Qur’an is a proof for you or against you.” [Muslim] So one of two things will occur with this proof, the Book of Allah. It will either be in your favour, a proof for you on the Day when you will need every single good deed, or it will be something standing against you, the very Speech of your Creator, a proof against you! Who could be saved from the terrors of that Day if Allah’s own Speech is against him?!

Think carefully, dear Muslim brother or sister, about your position with the Qur’an! Are you neglecting it, contradicting it, being heedless of its orders and prohibitions, are you thinking deeply over it?! Will it be on your side on the Day of Judgment.?! O Allah! We ask you, by Your Glorious Speech and the rest of your beautiful Names and Attributes, to make the Qur’an a proof for us! O Allah! Don’t make the Qur’an a proof against us on that Day, and save us from the Hellfire! For if Allah makes the Qur’an a proof in our favour on that Day, then it would also be an intercessor for us, when NO intercession will take place except by His Permission.

3. The Qur’an will intercede for us on the Day of Judgment.
The proof: Aboo Umaamah relates that the Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) said: “Read the Qur’an, for verily it will come on the Day of Standing as an intercessor for its companions.” [Muslim]

4. Your status in this life will be raised.
In Saheeh Muslim, we find a lovely story, about how a man from the people of Jannah, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattaab, understood this principle. Some men came to question him during his khilaafah about the leadership of Makkah, they asked, “Who do you use to govern Makkah?” He said, “Ibn Abzaa.” They asked, “And who is Ibn Abzaa?” Umar replied, “A freed slave from those we freed.” They remarked, “You left a freed slave in charge of the people of the Valley (the noble tribes of the Quraysh)!?” So he answered them, “Verily he is a reader of the Book of Allah and is knowledgeable about the obligations of the Muslims. Haven’t you heard the statement of your Messenger: “Verily Allah raises some people by this Book and lowers others by it.”

5. You will be from the best of the people.
‘Uthmaan, may Allah be pleased with him, said that the Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) said: “The best of you are the ones who learn the Qur’an and teach it to others” [Al-Bukhari]

6. There are ten rewards for each letter you recite from the Qur’an.
As an authentic hadith in At-Tirmithee proves: “Whoever reads a letter from the Book of Allah, he will have a reward. And that reward will be multiplied by ten. I am not saying that “Alif, Laam, Meem” is a letter, rather I am saying that “Alif” is a letter, “laam” is a letter and “meem” is a letter.” So increase your recitation of the Qur’an to gain these merits, and to gain the following merit as well.

7. The reciters of the Qur’an will be in the company of the noble and obedient angels.
‘Aa’ishah, may Allah be pleased with her, relates that the Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) said: “Verily the one who recites the Qur’an beautifully, smoothly, and precisely, he will be in the company of the noble and obedient angels. And as for the one who recites with difficulty, stammering or stumbling through its verses, then he will have TWICE that reward.” [Al-Bukhari and Muslim]

So dear brother or sister Muslim, do not let the Shaytaan give you false excuses, such as “I am not an ‘Arab,” or “Its not my language.” This hadith is a firm proof against these whisperings. Dedicate yourself to the Book of Allah, whether you are an ‘Arab or not! The excuses have been eliminated and the pathway has been cleared for you to embrace the Book of Allah without holding back or offering excuses! And surely you will not hesitate to seek a teacher or a study circle for the Qur’an once you hear the last and perhaps greatest benefits of reading and contemplating over the Qur’an...

8. Your position in Paradise is determined by the amount of Qur’an you memorize in this life!
‘Abdullaah ibn ‘Amr ibn al-’Aas heard the Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) saying: “It will be said to the companion of the Qur’an: Read and elevate (through the levels of the Paradise) and beautify your voice as you used to do when you were in the dunyaa! For verily, your position in the Paradise will be at the last verse you recite!” [Aboo Daawood and At-Tirmithee, saheeh]

9. The Qur’an will lead you to Paradise!
The Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) said: “The Qur’an is an intercessor, something given permission to intercede, and it is rightfully believed in. Whoever puts it in front of him, it will lead him to Paradise; whoever puts it behind him, it will steer him to the Hellfire.” [An authentic hadith found in At-Tabaraanee, on the authority of ‘Abdullaah ibn Mas’ood]

Know, dear brother or sister, that these nine benefits from the many benefits available can only be attained by a sincere commitment to the Book of Allah, not by a person’s mere statement, “I love the Qur’an, it’s beautiful.” Rather the heart must be sincerely attached to Allah’s Book and the limbs and tongue will follow in this attachment. You must know that we only mentioned a few of the numerous benefits of reading and reflecting over the Qur’an. There are many benefits that await your reading in the Qur’an and books of hadith, like the chapter of the Qur’an that will argue on your behalf in the grave, and that it is a physical healing, a source of rest and relaxation for your heart, among many other things. And Allah knows best.