All aboard! You’re a happeningly hip young practicing Muslim attending the local university. After staying for an unnecessarily long MSA Exec Board meeting on campus, you are forced to take the train home during rush hour. You really want to get home in time for dinner, so you hurry to the station and barely squeeze into one of the cars in time for the express ride home.

As you make your way to find a seat, you notice two, and only two open seats. However, next to each of the spots are two young outrageously attractive passengers of the opposite gender the likes of super models; one non-Muslim and the other a practicing Muslim from your MSA, community, and masjid. You’re dead tired from the day and standing is not an option on this 45 minute ride. As the train leaves, the question emerges: where do you sit?

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Another really slick upcoming advancement in Wii fun. Check out the Wii MotionPlus. It’s a mini little attachment that plugs into the bottom of your Wiimote and is supposed to read the movements of your controller much better than before.

Notice how simple the add-on is; small and light. Now check out this video of it’s capabilities Read the rest

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Have you ever heard of the commonly joked about character, “the convertible hijabi?” The drop-top nickname for sisters within our communities, particularly those who only cover during times like prayer, when Qur’an is recited, and during other Islamic instances, and will remove or wear it improperly during others. You all know of this concept and this popular term that has been assigned to it, right?

I feel this phrase carries a lot of negativity, the kind our sisters already struggling with hijab don’t need at all. We may be passionate about our fellow sisters covering themselves, but we have to be careful in how we respect them. If we really wish for them to one day start covering with hijab, we need rethink the use of this term and phrase altogether.

Firstly, we have to remember to sometimes look at things from others’ shoes. Read the rest

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So I visited IslamToday.com to find an answer to a question and found something very awkward and different for the website under the general supervision of Shaykh Salman Al-Oadah. Here is a screen cap of the main page that I saw.

Yes that says Certified Canadian Pharmacy, Xanax, and Viagra with free shipping under the Fatwa Archive. Usually you’ll find newly submitted or recently relevant fatāwa (i.e. Hajj related answers in Dhul-Qi’dah), yet here we see adverts for popular prescriptions instead. Can it be that IslamToday.com got hacked? Read the rest

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Nikaḥ kitāba, otherwise known as “celibate marriage,” has become an increasingly common and preferred way of marriage for many young Muslim couples. A young man and woman may find themselves wanting to marry one another, but at the time are unable to live together. So instead of being engaged for long periods of time and making things difficult for the two, they choose to wed by nikaḥ kitāba.

This practice is actually a tradition of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, who married Ayesha, may Allah be pleased with her, and delayed consummation until she was older.

After over 18 months of being married by nikaḥ kitāba, today marks the day my wife and I will be having our “ruksathi” wedding party after which will begin to live our lives together forever, inshaAllah. After a wonderful year and a half of a beautiful relationship Allah blessed us with, we came up with what we feel is an essential survival guide for couples undergoing the same journey we just completed. If you are married by nikāḥ kitāba or will be in the future, then this list is for you. Read the rest

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