[raspirator]

This is an excellent explanation given by a Turkish Scholar who was one of the main defenders and revivers of Islam in Ataturk's Turkey. This is taken from his masterpiece commentary on the Quran -'Risala e Nur'.

The Shaykh explains the five benefits of this trade with Allah and five losses of rejecting it.

Profitable Trade with Allah! By Badee uz zaman Saeed Nursi
"Verily God has purchased from the believers their persons and their property that Paradise might be theirs." (Qur’an, 9:111)

If you wish to understand how profitable a trade it is, and how honour-able a rank, to sell one’s person and property to God, to be His slave and His soldier, then listen to the following comparison:

Read here:
http://tazkiyatips.blogspot.com/2012...-badee-uz.html

[raspirator]

Verily God has purchased from the believers their persons and property that Paradise might be theirs.

The surging field of battle is the tempestuous surface of the world, which ceaselessly changes, dissolves and reforms and causes every man to think:

“Since everything will leave our hands, will perish and be lost, is there no way in which we can transform it into something eternal and preserve it?”

While engaged in these thoughts, he suddenly hears the heavenly voice of the Qur’an saying:

“Indeed there is, a beautiful and easy way which contains five profits within itself.”

What is that way?

To sell the trust received back to its true owner.

[stastony]

jazakallah brother

i like the analogy of body, soul and heart, like machinery, tools and scales

nice blog too, i recommend translating your title in the header into English for the benefit of English speaking viewers, i think anyone might benefit from that article - but maybe thats not your target audience ?

[raspirator]

jazakallah brother

i like the analogy of body, soul and heart, like machinery, tools and scales

nice blog too, i recommend translating your title in the header into English for the benefit of English speaking viewers, i think anyone might benefit from that article - but maybe thats not your target audience ?

and JazakAllah khair for the suggestions, I have changed the text in the header a bit, is it ok?

[stastony]

Yes but if possible translate Tazkiya and Marifa in the header with English maybe in parentheses ()

People land on a page for on average 5 seconds...if they dont understand the first thing they see, i.e the big TITLE in the header above the fold (the fold is before you have to scroll down), they are gone...lost readers...never to return..clicked on the x.

So your content has no chance of being viewed by English reading non-muslims, unless the reader in 5 seconds KNOWS what Tazkiya and Marifa are ? What chance the vast majority of people in US, UK, AUS, CAN, NZ (top english site users, though many users in Philipines and India and Pakistan and Europe and Africa use English based sites too) have of knowing what Tazkiya and Marifa are ?

Or put Tazkiya or Marifa in your sub title, so the title is at least explained within the top fold.

Extracts from speeches and writings of Islamic Scholars on Islamic Spirituality and Purification of the Soul! As it stands, vast majority of English users and others dont get your title

Great work brother Mashallah Also the theme is nice too, nice 2 columns, simple and nice pleasent colours

PS You should get people on here to knock up a quick background for your title too.


Their are skilled artists on here, that could do a very decent job in 10 minutes.
Im no artist, but ill do one for you if the above fails, if you would like

Thats the only thing that makes the site look amaturish from the first impression, a nice background and the site will hit the sweet spot between time and presentation (you could spend weeks making a site look better, but sometimes you got call a cut off point)

.. BUT maybe im going into this too deeply so feel free to ignore any of the advice if it conflicts with your aims.

[raspirator]

Yes but if possible translate Tazkiya and Marifa in the header with English maybe in parentheses ()

People land on a page for on average 5 seconds...if they dont understand the first thing they see, i.e the big TITLE in the header above the fold (the fold is before you have to scroll down), they are gone...lost readers...never to return..clicked on the x.

So your content has no chance of being viewed by English reading non-muslims, unless the reader in 5 seconds KNOWS what Tazkiya and Marifa are ? What chance the vast majority of people in US, UK, AUS, CAN, NZ (top english site users, though many users in Philipines and India and Pakistan and Europe and Africa use English based sites too) have of knowing what Tazkiya and Marifa are ?

Or put Tazkiya or Marifa in your sub title, so the title is at least explained within the top fold.



As it stands, vast majority of English users and others dont get your title

Great work brother Mashallah Also the theme is nice too, nice 2 columns, simple and nice pleasent colours

PS You should get people on here to knock up a quick background for your title too.


Their are skilled artists on here, that could do a very decent job in 10 minutes.
Im no artist, but ill do one for you if the above fails, if you would like

Thats the only thing that makes the site look amaturish from the first impression, a nice background and the site will hit the sweet spot between time and presentation (you could spend weeks making a site look better, but sometimes you got call a cut off point)

.. BUT maybe im going into this too deeply so feel free to ignore any of the advice if it conflicts with your aims.

JazakAllah khair brother for your in depth comments. Actually, I am an amateur in this field and was really looking for some good advise on all aspects of the blog.
Regarding the header, i can translate it but since the blog itself is full of Islamic terminology, will a non-Muslim or a totally novice Muslim be able to benefit from the blog (since it is not meant to be a Dawah or general Islamic site)? I want to reach people who are looking for spirituality based content from authoritative Islamic sources and also to increase the awareness of Tazkiya and spirituality in Muslim netizens. What do you advise?
I too was thinking about the background but didnt know what to do. Can you suggest/help?

[stastony]

If your site is for "enlightened" muslims purely, then it doesnt matter what you do with the titles, background, presentation - just focus on great content

If its not dawah , it is then forbidding the bad and enjoining the good to the muslims ? Either way its dawah - in my lowly opinon

You should get a wordpress self-hosted blog instead of blogspot if you intend to do this seriously..Also number and styles of themes is much more extensive and varied. Also more plugins.

Its 10 dollars for a dot com domain, and a 2 to 3 dollars a month hosting. Much more flexible than blogspot hosted platform.

You should also add traffic stats, (just one line of code inserted into your blog- im pretty certain blogspot allow this) It will give you a better understanding of your visitors, so you can tailor your site and content accordingly. In truth you cannot predict this, its a matter of time and stats, so you need to actually get a few thousand visitors first before you can understand what they want (e.g what type of articles are read a lot, and what type of articles are mainly ignored, so you spend your time efficiently)

Islamic terminology is enticing to people, especially since between the terminology is sound, practicable and understandable to all advice. Advice that could benefit all.

Dont underestimate people, a new muslim, a novice muslim even an atheist can benefit, in my lowly opinion.

Why not maximise the readership ?

If the aim is making the presentation easy to navigate, and simple to understand and enticing enough to make you want to delve further, then why not simplify the title ? If a side product of your efforts in reminding the "enlightened" muslims leads to new and novice and non-muslims and even atheists from perhaps delving further, at the cost of simplifying the title, then why not ?

You dont need to water your content down though, you should keep the terminology etc etc - im talking about Navigation links, titles, sub-titles, content header text, content footer text, Category headings,

In terms of background overall, you should keep it plain solid colour, no patterns, as it makes the centre column content easier to read. The title should be have a patterned backgound or gradiented background but not the solid block that makes it amateurish at the moment. Maybe reduce the size of the title text for a quick fix?

Personally, whoever its for, the more professional looking the better i guess ?