[Clilmence]

Any progress on this issue?


Also I have another question ,Isn't it haraam to look like the other sex? There is a hadeeth about it too...then how comes effeminate men existed at all at that time since it was haraam to imitate the other gender?

Here is the sharah of the hadeeth, I am running out of time at moment I would appreciate if you could translated it for the brothers and sisters inshAllah

مرقاة المفاتيح شرح مشكاة المصابيح - (10 / 64)
وفي البيت مخنث بكسر النون وفتحها والكسر أفصح والفتح أشهر كذا في تهذيب الأسماء وهو الذي يتشبه بالنساء في أخلاقه وكلامه وحركاته وسكناته فتارة يكون هذا خلقة ولا ذم له ولا إثم عليه ولذا لم ينكر النبي أولا دخوله على النساء وتارة يكون بتكلف وهو ملعون قال عليه الصلاة والسلام لعن الله المتشبهات من النساء بالرجال والمتشبهين من الرجال بالنساء وأما دخول المخنث على أمهات المؤمنين فلأنهن اعتقدن أنه من غير أولى الأربة فلما سمع عليه الصلاة والسلام منه الكلام الآتي علم أنه من أولى الأربة فمنع أو لأنه يترتب الفساد على دخوله على النساء لوصفه إياهنن للأجانب

[RSAccountssy]

Sorry to barge in and interrupt the hermaphrodite discussion But I think a lot of fat Muslims should be given the benefit of the doubt. They may not be greedy and/or lazy, just trapped in a life where there's an abundance of food put in front of them several times a day but no opportunities for physical exercise with the same regular inevitability.

Many jobs nowadays are sedentary. Many people are forced to commute to work by car/bus/subway simply because of the distance. Many people "bulk-shop" and prefer cars for shopping so they don't have to lug home their 32-roll packs of toilet paper and buy-10-get-2-free crates of milk etc. Many people no longer walk to a butcher's shop, then a greengrocer's, then a bakery, then carry their shopping home. In fact there is very little walking or effort programmed into their weekly schedules at all.

But wives and mothers are still wives and mothers and still cajole their children and husbands to eat "just one more" plateful of yummy food. So in first-world countries nearly everybody is well-fed but nobody is forced to burn off what they eat. With few exceptions, men used to earn their livelihood with physical exertion - carrying, building, digging, etc. - they had to burn calories to be able to afford to consume calories! Nowadays food - cheap food in large portions - is readily available and affordable. Exercise is something you have to consciously seek out and program into your daily life at the expense of an extra hour of sleep or whatever.

Having said that - fat Muslim housewives? Now, that I don't get. When do they find the time to sit down and eat, let alone remain still for long enough so that the food they eat can be converted into fat cells?! I have never visited a sister and actually seen her sit down.

And if you do see a chubby sister, then you can be pretty sure it's not immoderate eating and/or laziness that's the issue, but hormones and genetics. In fact, if you see a very slim sister, it's quite likely that she is that way consciously, out of vanity, trying to adhere to Western cultural norms. Nine out of ten women are naturally curvy and plump - after the age of thirty or giving birth to two children, anyway - and if this is the shape Allah has designed for them when they're eating moderately and keeping active, then they'd have to eat unhealthily little to be thin. The women on "Desperate Housewives" or other "role models" for the modern housewife - they are not naturally thin and muscular, and don't get that way from eating healthily and horse-riding and archery and swimming. They get that way from devoting their entire day to looking that way.

OK, anyway, back to the hermaphrodites =)

[bQXHsKzS]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_xYfc0S0hw

[bQXHsKzS]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_xYfc0S0hw

http://www.islamsgreen.org/islams_gr...ughness_o.html




There are a few reasons that I chose Imam Shamil, the leader for twenty five years of Chechen and Dagestani resistance against Imperial Russia in the 1850’s.

The first is because when Abu Esa phone me about the conference he told me it was going to be based around outstanding Muslim personalities. So Imam Shamil came to mind. I have recently being doing a lot of reading about Chechnia ever since I was asked to become a supporter of the save Chechnia campaign, and the first book I read was the epic work of Lesley Blanch, The Sabres of Paradise: conquest and Vengeance in the Caucasus. It is a book just as much about Tsarist Russia under Nicholas I as it is about Shamil, but her sympathies are with the Imam, even if it is with the Orientalist’s view of him as the “Noble Savage”. She based her account of the Imam and his life on the accounts written by one of the Imams close followers, Muhammed Tahir of Karahi.

The second reason I chose the Imam was in no small part because he was a Sufi from the Naqshabandi tariqa. In these days when Jihad has become synonymous with terrorism, Wahabism and Salafist some Sufi’s have unashamedly used this atmosphere of confusion and fear to lay all the blame at the Wahabist door and to portray the Sufi path as entirely peaceful and pacifist, and the internal and spiritual Jihad espoused by themselves as the only authentic and valid Jihad. It seemed a perfect opportunity to remind them, ourselves and others how short sighted, shameless and ultimately false such sectarian opportunism is. It certainly hasn’t fooled Robert Spencer of Jihad watch. Most of the great Mujahids resisting European Imperialism were Sufis. Sheikh Abdul Qadir Al Jeziri, who actually met Imam Shamyl on hajj, and discussed guerrilla warfare tactics together. Sheikh Abdul Qair fought the French for ten years, until the sheer brutality of the French army massacring civilians forced him to give in. Shah Waliullah in India,and of course in the last century Omar Mukhtar in Lybia. All could be described as Sufis.

Differences, I suspect, we will always have, by these should kept between us. Whatever differences we have as Muslims, we can and must present to those who are ready to destroy us a united front.

‘Verily, Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in rows (ranks), as if they were a solid structure.’ Surat-as-Saff (61), ayah 4)

There is no doubt that this unity, presenting a solid structure, is one of the lost virtues. Imam Shamyl understood the importance of this, and it is one of remarkable qualities of the Imam how was able to unite the dazzling mosaic of enthnic groups and rival clans of the Caucasus. More than fifty different languages are spoken in its towns and settlements. Although most of these groups and tribes are Muslim, even in the nineteenth century the degree of actual practice was varied. Shamyl know that this unity was essential for successful resistance, what was helped by the brutality of the Russian General Yermalov, who name is still called out by Russian soldiers to Chechns today to remind them of what they suffered and will still suffer.

Shamyl combined diplomacy, mauitha (Islamic enoucragements) and harsh punishments for dissenters to maintain this unity. He made it clear that that would be and must no talk of compromise with the Russians. Victory needed total commitment. Anyone dissenting could receive a hundred lashes as punishment. In one famous incident, and at a time when Muslims were particularly hard pressed and suffering many physical hardships, and were in so hard pressed fighting the Russians that they were on the point of surrender. But no such thing was allowed by the Imam. Shamyls mother was persuaded to approach him to encourage a compromise, but when he came to hear of this his order was that anyone who even suggested such surrender was to to be lashed 100 times! The order was carried out, but after only several lashes Shamyl threw himself across his mother and ordered the rest of the lashes to be carried out on himself, and threatened death to the administrator of the punishment if the lashes were not hard enough. After this he called for those who had talked of surrender and thus caused such a punishment to befall his mother.

You can imagine their terror and what punishment might fall on them.

“Return to your homes, and depart in peace, and hold fast to the Rope of Allah.”

No more talk of surrender was heard.

Shamyl’s Murids where know for fighting to the death, and even, it seemed beyond.

They lay there, mangled, pierced, and bled white: they drank the herbal brews, submitted to torturing treatments-and generally recovered. The Rus*sians found them a most stubborn enemy. Killed-or so it seemed they still lived. One Murid, or holy warrior, would rush out of a beleaguered aoul brandishing his shashka in one hand, a pistol in the other, his kindjal between his teeth, and hurl himself on the astounded Russians, firing rapidly in all directions, then, dropping his gun, begin to thrust and slash with his steel, so that five or six enemy were accounted for before he too fell; and even in the dying he would usually contrive another deadly thrust. 'They don't seem to know when they ought to die, sir,' says a Russian soldier in one of Lermontov's Caucasian tales. 'Indeed, sir, these villains can hardly ever be killed. They are a people without the slightest idea of propriety.'

Shamyls struggle was part of a larger and longer gazwat (as they called it) that started in the time of Catherine the Great who invaded the Caucusus and was opposed by the forces of Sheikh Mansor. The fight was taken up again by Khazi Mullah, who was a friend of Shamyl. But Khazi Mullah’s rebellion was ill timed and short lived. It all ended in the siege of the fortified mountain village of Ghimri. Five hundred Murids against ten thousand Russians. Only two Murids escaped death and one of them was Shamyl, but it was in this escape that his legend was really born.

This is the account of a Russian soldier:

It was dark: by the light of the burning thatch we saw a man standing in the doorway of saklia, which stood on raised ground, rather above us. This man, who was very tall and powerfully built stood quite still, as if giving us time to'take aim. Then, suddenly, with the spring of a wild beast, he leapt clean over the heads of the very line of soldiers about to fire on him, 'and landing beliind them, whirling his sword in his left hand [Shamyl, it will be recalled, was left-handed] he cut down three of them, but was bayoneted by the fourth, the steel plunging deep into his chest. His face still extraordinary in its immobility, he seized the bayonet, pulled it out of his own flesh, cut down the man and, with another superhuman leap, cleared the wall and vanished into the darkness. We were left absolutely dumbfounded. The whole business had taken, perhaps, a minute and a half.

Two things have always shocked me about many Muslims since I embraced Islam. The first is how could a Muslim be illiterate when the first word revealed was read? The second was how physically feeble and unfit so many Muslims are. I recall one of my early trips up North as a new Muslim and was shocked that Muslims boys didn’t play rugby because their parents considered it too rough! There is a truth in the saying that the British Empire was founded on the (rugby ) playing fields of its public schools . Physical toughness, strength, absence of luxurious living are virtues that should be present in the Muslim.

“The strong believer is better and more beloved to Allah than the weak believer, while there is good in both.” Muslim

Salih al-Fawzaan had the following to say about physical strength and its relation to our belief and actions:

“The believer who is strong in his belief, body, and actions is better than the weak believer, the one who has weak belief, or a weak body or weak actions. That is because the strong believer is productive and accomplishes things for the Muslims, and thus they benefit from his physical strength, actions, and his strong belief.

“So this hadith is an encouragement to have strength, as Islam is the Religion on strength, the Religion of honor, the Religion of prestige!

“So the strength that is sought from us in Islam is strength in belief and its tenets, as well as strength in our actions and bodies, because all of this brings forth good things for the Muslims.

“The believer who has strong belief is more likely to be fit and in shape. This is because he understands the importance of striving and staying in shape in preparation for it, while the weak believer may easily get fat and out of shape, from his overeating and laziness. Physical strength is a direct result of strength in belief.”

It is not to belittle the many qualities of Imam Shamyl that I have chosen him to represent this lost virtue of physical strength and toughness, but he exemplifies this virtue so admirably.

When young it seems Shamyl was very sure of himself but without the physical sature to match it. Some young boys from his village took a dislike to this and stabbed him in the stomach and left him for dead. Returning to consciousness Shamyl's first instinct was to hide from both taunts and sympathy. He dragged himself back to the mountains, contrived to bind up his own wounds and obtain those herbal concoctions for which the mountaineers were famous. The methods used for treating wounds with herbs (a skill which was given plenty of opportunities to perfect itself in this part of the world) were known and respected by even the Russian army surgeons. Sometimes the village doctors succeeded in clamping shut the torn arteries by means of applying a large, ferocious species of local ant. Once the pincer-like mandibles had fastened on the arteries, the rest of the ant's body was snipped off-the pincers remained in place. The gaping wound was bound up, herbs were applied, and no blood *poisoning followed.

So the stoical young Shamyl hid his wounds and his humiliation, and did not return to Ghimri until he was not only recovered, but toughened by an implacable, self-imposed regime of physical culture. From that moment on, he forced himself to feats of endurance, changing himself into a lean, iron-hard athlete.

The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) commands us saying: “Teach your children swimming, archery and horse-riding.”

Shamyl could out-fight, out-ride, out-swim and out-run all the rest of the mountain people; just as they had their own methods of curing wounds, so they had their jealously guarded methods of training and hardening both themselves and their horses (usually bred in the plains, or from Kabarda) to be able to cover the enormous distances and endure the violent changes of climate their raiding tactics and the country demanded. And likewise, the Caucasian... mountaineers, trained themselves to an extraordinary stamina.

They ate very sparingly, as a race, but the fighting men ate least of all: thus, in the Caucasian wars, they were better able to withstand the rigours of long marches in barren country, unfettered by the cumbersome supply-wagons which hampered Rus*sian columns on the move and included such unmanageable objects as five-foot-high brass samovars, to hold fifty gallons of tea, without which the humblest recruit would have mutinied. Wine was forbidden….Meat was a rarity at their tables, and then only lamb, goat or chicken. Their magnificent physique was generally maintained on a few cakes of rough-ground millet, and a little goats' cheese. During a campaign, these virile creatures were often seen to eat, and appear well nourished by a few leaves, or even flowers-rhododendrons being considered particularly sustaining. They trained themselves to run great distances, swiftly, at a level speed, without panting, by carrying a bullet, or a pebble, in their mouths. Their lives were a mixture of personal austerity and heroic excess.

Shamyl lashed himself to their strenuous pattern until, at twenty, he was famous for his feats. He could sever the butt of a rifle with one blow of his kindjal, and was once seen to cleave a Cossack horseman almost to the saddle in one cut. He could clear a seven-foot wall at a leap, or, as they said in local idiom, 'stride a Khevsour'. (This tribe, strangely blond giants, were believed to be descendants of the Crusaders; they wore chain mail decorated with Maltese crosses, while their swords, handed down from father to son, often bore the Crusaders' device: Ave Mater Dei.

Shamyl's horsemanship was remarkable. The mountaineers' equestrian acrobatics had the same brilliance as the Arabs'. Perhaps it was a legacy from their Arab conquerors in the eighth century. At any rate Caucasian djighitovkas -festivals of horsemanship and daring-were similar, and equal to, the Arab fantasia and made even the Cossack riders seem inept by com*parison; trick-riding, circus stuff, all of it in daily use in their violent raiding warfare. Shamyl was speaking to the people in a language they understood best when he flung himself into the saddle at one bound, cleared the high gates of the aoul in another, and scorning the path, leapt a precipice, hanging head-downwards under his horse's belly, swinging up the other side to stand in the saddle and, at the gallop, shoot a coin spun high in the air. Later, when he called them to battle, when he preached the Shariat-the Law, and the Tarikat-the Way, they knew the mettle of their new leader, and followed blindly. Perhaps, when the young Shamyl was outpacing the fieriest djighits, he was, even unconsciously fostering his legend, the legend that surrounded him by both circumstance and design all his life, and which was, even in its more theatrical aspects, to strengthen his other, mystical aura of leadership.

There is no avoiding the fact that one of the greatest reasons for physical strength and toughness is for jihad. It at this juncture I am forced by the reality of the state of confusion prevalent in these times to reiterate that we as Muslims do not seek confrontation or desire to initiate hostilities. Despite the many virtues of jihad we should not imagine that this means we seek physical conflict, or that in desperation we can resort to means like terrorism that is so far removed from the nobility of this religion. We want and should desire to live a peaceful life and coexistence, but we have the right, and no one can take this away from us, to defend ourselves individually and collectively against attack and aggression. We also have the right and duty to prepare ourselves against such attack. The Quran teaches this and international law affirms that also. Jihad is not something we should be embarrassed about, or made to feel embarrassed about, but it is a noble principle that no reasonable person could disagree with.

The Imam had mistakes, like all humans, but the ghazwat of Shamyl was without doubt in essance just and fair and right, and in the striving of this great Muslim personality there is an example for us all.

For an excellent short bio of the Imam read this.

[alecaf]

I have heard about Shaykh Abu Hasan Shadhili, that he fought the crusaders at al-Mansurah, even though he was old and almost blind.

It was the 5th Crusade when the French King tried to invade Egypt from the sea, while the main Muslim army was in Palestine. Therefore the emergency Muslim army in al-Mansurah had large numbers of ordinary citizen volunteers including ulama, even old ones such as Shaykh Shadhili.

It is said the du'a Hizbul-Nasr was composed by him at this time, and he fought with two swords.

[JesexhiSeeces]

Sister, though the 'justifications' you have made in your post might make sense, at least to those with a bit of an imagination, I do have to pick on one thing.

In fact, if you see a very slim sister, it's quite likely that she is that way consciously, out of vanity, trying to adhere to Western cultural norms.

Subhan'Allah... that is one heavily judgmental statement. Look around and you will see plenty of sisters who look like they're 25 and are extremely slim, and then it turns out they're 49 years old and have 5 kids, and they just naturally never gained weight. Just to be clear, I don't go around looking at sisters like that, but I'm speaking based ones I know of personally (family members, their family members, etc). So my point is that it's probably not fair to cry "Western Imitator" just because a sister is naturally thin. In fact, the ones I'm speaking of are hijabis and, Alhamdulillah, closer to the deen than many sisters out there today.

There are some other discrepancies in your post but I think I am better off keeping my mouth shut.

Not trying to pick an argument with you, but just felt the need to point that out. I know your intention may not have been as I perceived it so please forgive me if I said anything wrong.

[tooratrack]

I have heard about Shaykh Abu Hasan Shadhili, that he fought the crusaders at al-Mansurah, even though he was old and almost blind.

It was the 5th Crusade when the French King tried to invade Egypt from the sea, while the main Muslim army was in Palestine. Therefore the emergency Muslim army in al-Mansurah had large numbers of ordinary citizen volunteers including ulama, even old ones such as Shaykh Shadhili.

It is said the du'a Hizbul-Nasr was composed by him at this time, and he fought with two swords.

wasalam

brother have you got any references for this

[alecaf]

wasalam

brother have you got any references for this

Various places, I googled for something or other. And sorry, it was the Seventh Crusade, not the Fifth.

This one has the story:
http://www.mysticsaint.info/2009/01/...orison-of.html

(There is a music player on the right column, which you can turn off)

"The Hizb an-Nasr was inspired and recited by Shaykh Abu Hassan As-Shadhuli about 800 years ago. This Hizb is called as-Saif as-shadhili (The sword of shadhili). It was written at the time when Shaykh Abu Hassan was fighting against the Crusaders, led by King Louis IX of France. The invading Crusaders were trying to invade through the city of Mansura.

Towards the end of his life, Abul Hasan Shadhili’s eye sight started to become weaker. He was slowly losing his eye sight but it didn’t prevent him from fighting in the front line of the battle of al-Mansurah when the Crusaders forces under King Louis of France invaded Misr (Egypt) in 1250. His age was approximately 54 then.

...

On the day of the battle he (Shaykh Abul Hasan) mounted his best horse and had one of the muridun hand him up his sword. When he had his sword to hand he asked for another, and with a sword in his right hand and a sword in his left hand he rode into battle. When asked later, given his deteriorating eyesight, how he could have ridden into battle and so honourably acquitted himself on the battle field he simply pointed to his heart saying: “If the eye of the heart sees clearly what need is there for my eyes?”
"

[tooratrack]

Various places, I googled for something or other. And sorry, it was the Seventh Crusade, not the Fifth.

This one has the story:
http://www.mysticsaint.info/2009/01/...orison-of.html

(There is a music player on the right column, which you can turn off)

"The Hizb an-Nasr was inspired and recited by Shaykh Abu Hassan As-Shadhuli about 800 years ago. This Hizb is called as-Saif as-shadhili (The sword of shadhili). It was written at the time when Shaykh Abu Hassan was fighting against the Crusaders, led by King Louis IX of France. The invading Crusaders were trying to invade through the city of Mansura.

Towards the end of his life, Abul Hasan Shadhili’s eye sight started to become weaker. He was slowly losing his eye sight but it didn’t prevent him from fighting in the front line of the battle of al-Mansurah when the Crusaders forces under King Louis of France invaded Misr (Egypt) in 1250. His age was approximately 54 then.

...

On the day of the battle he (Shaykh Abul Hasan) mounted his best horse and had one of the muridun hand him up his sword. When he had his sword to hand he asked for another, and with a sword in his right hand and a sword in his left hand he rode into battle. When asked later, given his deteriorating eyesight, how he could have ridden into battle and so honourably acquitted himself on the battle field he simply pointed to his heart saying: “If the eye of the heart sees clearly what need is there for my eyes?”
"

wasalam
jazakAllahukhayr

[greekbeast]

Salam alaykum.
MashaAllah excellent post by Rahmaniyyah. JazakAllah khayr,

Just another point,

I find it interesting that mukhannaths and fat people are being discussed in the same thread. I believe the two are rather inter-linked. Muslim men, it seems are no longer men, they have begun to lack the manliness of the Muslims of yore which, upon the slippery slope somtimes (I believe) leads to increased feminity and beyond. In Pakistan there used to be a saying amongst the Punjab "assi choorian ni payan" - we are not wearing bangles - you go to the Punjab now its and full of puffs and lets not talk about the underground gay scene. Shaykh Abu'l Hasan Ali Nadwi rahimahulla mentions that men need to do more "manlier" things; wrestling, competing in strength, mountain climbing etc. and parents should be encouraging this from inception - if there was a culture of strength and health reborn amongst Muslims, I believe, it would resolve the issue of "fat Muslim men" and even encourage those who are more in touch with their feminine side.

It can even be used to pull in Muslim youth. for instance the youth that i know enjoy strength orientated things, training, martial arts etc.

vids like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emkEFxx2Bns (mute to avoid music in beginning)

are inspirational creating an attitude of manliness and then using it to tie it our pristine Deen and call them to it.

[OwdBKKHO]

Assalamu alaykum

If the discussion is on over-eating, I am sorry. But if some one is by heredity fat, then that is an exemption.

I heard that Syeduna Ali RA was fat and Syeduna Abu bakr RA was very lean.

[HootSnori]

http://www.islamsgreen.org/islams_gr...ughness_o.html




There are a few reasons that I chose Imam Shamil, the leader for twenty five years of Chechen and Dagestani resistance against Imperial Russia in the 1850’s.

The first is because when Abu Esa phone me about the conference he told me it was going to be based around outstanding Muslim personalities. So Imam Shamil came to mind. I have recently being doing a lot of reading about Chechnia ever since I was asked to become a supporter of the save Chechnia campaign, and the first book I read was the epic work of Lesley Blanch, The Sabres of Paradise: conquest and Vengeance in the Caucasus. It is a book just as much about Tsarist Russia under Nicholas I as it is about Shamil, but her sympathies are with the Imam, even if it is with the Orientalist’s view of him as the “Noble Savage”. She based her account of the Imam and his life on the accounts written by one of the Imams close followers, Muhammed Tahir of Karahi.

The second reason I chose the Imam was in no small part because he was a Sufi from the Naqshabandi tariqa. In these days when Jihad has become synonymous with terrorism, Wahabism and Salafist some Sufi’s have unashamedly used this atmosphere of confusion and fear to lay all the blame at the Wahabist door and to portray the Sufi path as entirely peaceful and pacifist, and the internal and spiritual Jihad espoused by themselves as the only authentic and valid Jihad. It seemed a perfect opportunity to remind them, ourselves and others how short sighted, shameless and ultimately false such sectarian opportunism is. It certainly hasn’t fooled Robert Spencer of Jihad watch. Most of the great Mujahids resisting European Imperialism were Sufis. Sheikh Abdul Qadir Al Jeziri, who actually met Imam Shamyl on hajj, and discussed guerrilla warfare tactics together. Sheikh Abdul Qair fought the French for ten years, until the sheer brutality of the French army massacring civilians forced him to give in. Shah Waliullah in India,and of course in the last century Omar Mukhtar in Lybia. All could be described as Sufis.

Differences, I suspect, we will always have, by these should kept between us. Whatever differences we have as Muslims, we can and must present to those who are ready to destroy us a united front.

‘Verily, Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in rows (ranks), as if they were a solid structure.’ Surat-as-Saff (61), ayah 4)

There is no doubt that this unity, presenting a solid structure, is one of the lost virtues. Imam Shamyl understood the importance of this, and it is one of remarkable qualities of the Imam how was able to unite the dazzling mosaic of enthnic groups and rival clans of the Caucasus. More than fifty different languages are spoken in its towns and settlements. Although most of these groups and tribes are Muslim, even in the nineteenth century the degree of actual practice was varied. Shamyl know that this unity was essential for successful resistance, what was helped by the brutality of the Russian General Yermalov, who name is still called out by Russian soldiers to Chechns today to remind them of what they suffered and will still suffer.

Shamyl combined diplomacy, mauitha (Islamic enoucragements) and harsh punishments for dissenters to maintain this unity. He made it clear that that would be and must no talk of compromise with the Russians. Victory needed total commitment. Anyone dissenting could receive a hundred lashes as punishment. In one famous incident, and at a time when Muslims were particularly hard pressed and suffering many physical hardships, and were in so hard pressed fighting the Russians that they were on the point of surrender. But no such thing was allowed by the Imam. Shamyls mother was persuaded to approach him to encourage a compromise, but when he came to hear of this his order was that anyone who even suggested such surrender was to to be lashed 100 times! The order was carried out, but after only several lashes Shamyl threw himself across his mother and ordered the rest of the lashes to be carried out on himself, and threatened death to the administrator of the punishment if the lashes were not hard enough. After this he called for those who had talked of surrender and thus caused such a punishment to befall his mother.

You can imagine their terror and what punishment might fall on them.

“Return to your homes, and depart in peace, and hold fast to the Rope of Allah.”

No more talk of surrender was heard.

Shamyl’s Murids where know for fighting to the death, and even, it seemed beyond.

They lay there, mangled, pierced, and bled white: they drank the herbal brews, submitted to torturing treatments-and generally recovered. The Rus*sians found them a most stubborn enemy. Killed-or so it seemed they still lived. One Murid, or holy warrior, would rush out of a beleaguered aoul brandishing his shashka in one hand, a pistol in the other, his kindjal between his teeth, and hurl himself on the astounded Russians, firing rapidly in all directions, then, dropping his gun, begin to thrust and slash with his steel, so that five or six enemy were accounted for before he too fell; and even in the dying he would usually contrive another deadly thrust. 'They don't seem to know when they ought to die, sir,' says a Russian soldier in one of Lermontov's Caucasian tales. 'Indeed, sir, these villains can hardly ever be killed. They are a people without the slightest idea of propriety.'

Shamyls struggle was part of a larger and longer gazwat (as they called it) that started in the time of Catherine the Great who invaded the Caucusus and was opposed by the forces of Sheikh Mansor. The fight was taken up again by Khazi Mullah, who was a friend of Shamyl. But Khazi Mullah’s rebellion was ill timed and short lived. It all ended in the siege of the fortified mountain village of Ghimri. Five hundred Murids against ten thousand Russians. Only two Murids escaped death and one of them was Shamyl, but it was in this escape that his legend was really born.

This is the account of a Russian soldier:

It was dark: by the light of the burning thatch we saw a man standing in the doorway of saklia, which stood on raised ground, rather above us. This man, who was very tall and powerfully built stood quite still, as if giving us time to'take aim. Then, suddenly, with the spring of a wild beast, he leapt clean over the heads of the very line of soldiers about to fire on him, 'and landing beliind them, whirling his sword in his left hand [Shamyl, it will be recalled, was left-handed] he cut down three of them, but was bayoneted by the fourth, the steel plunging deep into his chest. His face still extraordinary in its immobility, he seized the bayonet, pulled it out of his own flesh, cut down the man and, with another superhuman leap, cleared the wall and vanished into the darkness. We were left absolutely dumbfounded. The whole business had taken, perhaps, a minute and a half.

Two things have always shocked me about many Muslims since I embraced Islam. The first is how could a Muslim be illiterate when the first word revealed was read? The second was how physically feeble and unfit so many Muslims are. I recall one of my early trips up North as a new Muslim and was shocked that Muslims boys didn’t play rugby because their parents considered it too rough! There is a truth in the saying that the British Empire was founded on the (rugby ) playing fields of its public schools . Physical toughness, strength, absence of luxurious living are virtues that should be present in the Muslim.

“The strong believer is better and more beloved to Allah than the weak believer, while there is good in both.” Muslim

Salih al-Fawzaan had the following to say about physical strength and its relation to our belief and actions:

“The believer who is strong in his belief, body, and actions is better than the weak believer, the one who has weak belief, or a weak body or weak actions. That is because the strong believer is productive and accomplishes things for the Muslims, and thus they benefit from his physical strength, actions, and his strong belief.

“So this hadith is an encouragement to have strength, as Islam is the Religion on strength, the Religion of honor, the Religion of prestige!

“So the strength that is sought from us in Islam is strength in belief and its tenets, as well as strength in our actions and bodies, because all of this brings forth good things for the Muslims.

“The believer who has strong belief is more likely to be fit and in shape. This is because he understands the importance of striving and staying in shape in preparation for it, while the weak believer may easily get fat and out of shape, from his overeating and laziness. Physical strength is a direct result of strength in belief.”

It is not to belittle the many qualities of Imam Shamyl that I have chosen him to represent this lost virtue of physical strength and toughness, but he exemplifies this virtue so admirably.

When young it seems Shamyl was very sure of himself but without the physical sature to match it. Some young boys from his village took a dislike to this and stabbed him in the stomach and left him for dead. Returning to consciousness Shamyl's first instinct was to hide from both taunts and sympathy. He dragged himself back to the mountains, contrived to bind up his own wounds and obtain those herbal concoctions for which the mountaineers were famous. The methods used for treating wounds with herbs (a skill which was given plenty of opportunities to perfect itself in this part of the world) were known and respected by even the Russian army surgeons. Sometimes the village doctors succeeded in clamping shut the torn arteries by means of applying a large, ferocious species of local ant. Once the pincer-like mandibles had fastened on the arteries, the rest of the ant's body was snipped off-the pincers remained in place. The gaping wound was bound up, herbs were applied, and no blood *poisoning followed.

So the stoical young Shamyl hid his wounds and his humiliation, and did not return to Ghimri until he was not only recovered, but toughened by an implacable, self-imposed regime of physical culture. From that moment on, he forced himself to feats of endurance, changing himself into a lean, iron-hard athlete.

The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) commands us saying: “Teach your children swimming, archery and horse-riding.”

Shamyl could out-fight, out-ride, out-swim and out-run all the rest of the mountain people; just as they had their own methods of curing wounds, so they had their jealously guarded methods of training and hardening both themselves and their horses (usually bred in the plains, or from Kabarda) to be able to cover the enormous distances and endure the violent changes of climate their raiding tactics and the country demanded. And likewise, the Caucasian... mountaineers, trained themselves to an extraordinary stamina.

They ate very sparingly, as a race, but the fighting men ate least of all: thus, in the Caucasian wars, they were better able to withstand the rigours of long marches in barren country, unfettered by the cumbersome supply-wagons which hampered Rus*sian columns on the move and included such unmanageable objects as five-foot-high brass samovars, to hold fifty gallons of tea, without which the humblest recruit would have mutinied. Wine was forbidden….Meat was a rarity at their tables, and then only lamb, goat or chicken. Their magnificent physique was generally maintained on a few cakes of rough-ground millet, and a little goats' cheese. During a campaign, these virile creatures were often seen to eat, and appear well nourished by a few leaves, or even flowers-rhododendrons being considered particularly sustaining. They trained themselves to run great distances, swiftly, at a level speed, without panting, by carrying a bullet, or a pebble, in their mouths. Their lives were a mixture of personal austerity and heroic excess.

Shamyl lashed himself to their strenuous pattern until, at twenty, he was famous for his feats. He could sever the butt of a rifle with one blow of his kindjal, and was once seen to cleave a Cossack horseman almost to the saddle in one cut. He could clear a seven-foot wall at a leap, or, as they said in local idiom, 'stride a Khevsour'. (This tribe, strangely blond giants, were believed to be descendants of the Crusaders; they wore chain mail decorated with Maltese crosses, while their swords, handed down from father to son, often bore the Crusaders' device: Ave Mater Dei.

Shamyl's horsemanship was remarkable. The mountaineers' equestrian acrobatics had the same brilliance as the Arabs'. Perhaps it was a legacy from their Arab conquerors in the eighth century. At any rate Caucasian djighitovkas -festivals of horsemanship and daring-were similar, and equal to, the Arab fantasia and made even the Cossack riders seem inept by com*parison; trick-riding, circus stuff, all of it in daily use in their violent raiding warfare. Shamyl was speaking to the people in a language they understood best when he flung himself into the saddle at one bound, cleared the high gates of the aoul in another, and scorning the path, leapt a precipice, hanging head-downwards under his horse's belly, swinging up the other side to stand in the saddle and, at the gallop, shoot a coin spun high in the air. Later, when he called them to battle, when he preached the Shariat-the Law, and the Tarikat-the Way, they knew the mettle of their new leader, and followed blindly. Perhaps, when the young Shamyl was outpacing the fieriest djighits, he was, even unconsciously fostering his legend, the legend that surrounded him by both circumstance and design all his life, and which was, even in its more theatrical aspects, to strengthen his other, mystical aura of leadership.

There is no avoiding the fact that one of the greatest reasons for physical strength and toughness is for jihad. It at this juncture I am forced by the reality of the state of confusion prevalent in these times to reiterate that we as Muslims do not seek confrontation or desire to initiate hostilities. Despite the many virtues of jihad we should not imagine that this means we seek physical conflict, or that in desperation we can resort to means like terrorism that is so far removed from the nobility of this religion. We want and should desire to live a peaceful life and coexistence, but we have the right, and no one can take this away from us, to defend ourselves individually and collectively against attack and aggression. We also have the right and duty to prepare ourselves against such attack. The Quran teaches this and international law affirms that also. Jihad is not something we should be embarrassed about, or made to feel embarrassed about, but it is a noble principle that no reasonable person could disagree with.

The Imam had mistakes, like all humans, but the ghazwat of Shamyl was without doubt in essance just and fair and right, and in the striving of this great Muslim personality there is an example for us all.

For an excellent short bio of the Imam read this.

This is so inspirational subhan Allah.

We Muslims have to fight our fatness and laziness. May Allah SWT help us. Amin