Saturday, June 06, 2009

FARDS OF ABLUTION

There are four fards (obligatory commandments of Allahu ta’ala) of ablution in the Hanafi Madhhab [1]: To wash the face once; to wash the two arms together with the elbows once; to apply masah on one-fourth of the head, that is, to rub a wet hand softly on it; to wash the feet, together with the ankle-bones on both sides once. [According to the Shafi’i and Maliki madhhabs niyyat (intention) and tartib (order) are fard. In Shafi’i one should intend while washing the face. The ablution will not become sahih (religiously lawful; valid) if one intends before the water touches the face.] It is fard to wash the beard on the face and chin. Washing the hanging part of the beard is fard in three madhhabs.





SUSTENANCE COMES FROM THE SKY



Allahu ta’ala sends the sustenance from the sky.

This is communicated clearly in ayats (verses of Qur’an Al-Kareem) and hadiths (saying of prophet alaihissalam). Today scientists have begun to realise this fact. In rainy weather, owing to lightning, the nitrogen gas in the air chemically combines with oxygen gas, forming a colourless gas called nitrogen monoxide. This gas cannot remain stable in the air. Combining with oxygen again, it turns into nitrogen dioxide. And this gas, which is orange-colored and suffocating, combines with the moisture of the air and turns into nitric acid. On the other hand, the hydrogen gas, which has become free from the air’s moisture as a result of its disintegration with the effect of lightning, combines with the air’s nitrogen and turns into amonia gas, which, combining with the nitric acid, which has also been formed meanwhile and with the carbon dioxide gas, which already exists in the air, makes the salts called amonium nitrate and amonium carbonate. These two salts, soluble like the salts of all other alcaline metals, descend on the earth with rain. The earth turns these substances into calcium nitrate and gives them to plants. Plants change these salts into albumens (proteins). Proteins pass into grazing animals and men from plants. Men take them from plants and from animals that eat grass. These substances are the building stones of men and animals. Dry proteins contain 14% nitrogen gas. Now, it has been calculated today that by means of rains more than four hundred million tons of the air’s nitrogen falls on the earth and turns into food each year. The amount that falls on seas is certainly much more than this. We can understand through science today that the sustenance descends from the sky in this manner. It must be descending in many other ways. Maybe in the future, science will be able to discover some of them.


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GLOSSARY

[1] madhhab: all of what a profound ‘alim of (especially) Fiqh (usually one of the four-Hanafi, Shafi’i, Maliki, Hanbali) or iman (one of the two, namely Ash-ari, Maturidi) communicated.

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