Beautiful Thing in Islam

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim

In The Name of Allah The Most Gracious The Most Merciful,

Day 5 of the Dakwah Training.

The author was asked, what is the most beautiful thing in Islam? Personally, the author feels that one of the most beautiful thing in Islam is brotherhood. It is a beautiful thing which Islam practices, where we regard every other Muslims as our brothers and sisters. Anywhere we go, when we found Muslim brother/sister we would be very happy, we greet, we hug each other (brothers with brothers, sisters with sisters),  and it somehow feels homely.

it reminds the author when she became a volunteer, along with her friends for Asian Youth Games hosted by her country 6 years back. She was assigned to accompany the athletes at the airport. Turned out that those athletes were Muslim athletes from Iran. They were delighted upon meeting the author and her friends and started to take picture here together.. "It is okay.. we Muslims are brothers and sisters" the leader of the team smiled.

In the mosque, though we might not know each other, we can pray together, shoulder by shoulder.. after we pray, we shake hands, say salam, hug each other.. it is such a wonderful scene to see and what more to experience it. There is no doubt that by praying jamaah (praying together) actually helps to strengthen ukhuwwah - relationship between the Muslims.

Brotherhood. Ukhuwwah. 

That is what stated in the Quran, Surah Al-Hujurat verse 10, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says

إِنَّمَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ إِخْوَةٌ فَأَصْلِحُوا بَيْنَ أَخَوَيْكُمْ ۚ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُرْحَمُونَ

The believers are but brothers, so make settlement between your brothers. And fear Allah that you may receive mercy.

p.s. Dr  Feham Ghalib shared with us this awesome quranic website http://corpus.quran.com

it has the aayat, translation, tafseer, and also it might benefit arab linguist, or those taking arabic language as their field if you want to refer the grammatical or syntactical part of the word/ayat.

Egyptian Nature Worship

Egyptians have the tradition of deifying living beings from human, animals as well as nature. It is believed that they have millions of gods whom they worship or regard as sacred. There are three stages of creation of life according to many Egyptians and they are: the creation of body, the transfer of divine essence to the body, and the body animation by the breath of life.

Out of numerous numbers of gods that they have, they still believe in the ultimate god – god of all gods. The creator often referred as “the one who made himself into millions” or “He Who Made Himself into Millions of Gods”  So in other words there are parts of god actually manifest in many living things thus the existence of many gods of the Egyptians. Most kings in Egypt were regard as gods as they were given specialty to communicate with the divine through dreams or portent. When they died, their sons were to be their successor in ruling Egypt and the people were to held responsible in keeping the gods presence in forms of statues and doing rituals and offerings.

Below is the famous family tree of highest rank of Egyptian gods. it was believed they were the firsts to exist thus spawned other million gods.

There are approximately 124 deities mentioned by Geraldine Pinch his book Handbook of Egyptian Mythology. They are the most prominent and commonly known by Egyptologist. Here I present to you 3 nature deities worshiped by the ancient Egyptians.

Apis (bull)

Apis was a bull deity which was believed a manifestation of Ptah the creator god. He was worshiped as the Osiris, the son god of the earth and sky. According to Deodorus, the soul of Osiris was passed into Apis bull after he died and continued by other new bull. Herodotus narrated that Apis was conceived by his mother after she was hit by lightning. On the other hand, Plutarch recorded that Apis was created miraculously by the moon light. Apis bull was said to be able to predict future. Since Apis bull was a sacred animal, he was not touched by any carrion eaters after being killed by Persian King in the 6^th BCE him out of the temple, except dogs which was then regard as filthy or unclean animal in Egyptian religion.

Heqet (frog)

Heqet was a frog goddess who primarily helped women giving birth and helped reborn the dead. She also helped other goddesses giving birth to divine children. A myth was narrated that Heqet and the other 3 deities were sent by Ra (sun god) to assist a women to give birth as she was said by the husband on her painful and difficult birth. Heqet then ease and hasten the birth of the babies. Other than that, she also helped in bringing back the dead deities and helped them in process of reborn. The Egyptians hoped that Heqet would be their divine midwife in bringing them back to life after death.

Khonsu (moon)

He was the moon god who was often associated with fate, judgement and punishment. Khonsu was feared by the Egyptians as he was a keeper of The Book of The End of Year. This book has the names of people who will die on that year. So the people of Egypt appealed to a gentler aspect of the god “Khonsu the Merciful” to alter the decrees of their fate. He could also heal those bodies who were possessed by evil spirit. by 

testing

3 nature worships of the ancient egyptians coming soon!