Oldest Video of the Hajj Pilgrimage to Mecca + Hajj History and benefits

Made in 1928, this video is purported to be the oldest video recording (actually is was probably film transferred to video) of the Hajj, annual pilgrimage to Mecca, also showing the preparations, travel by camel, and other aspects of what was once a much more arduous journey to the holy site. Back then you had to bring your own tents and the entire city was off-limits to non-Muslims.

The history of the Hajj (now also spelled Haj) is not only about the rituals that are performed during the annual Hajj during the month of Thul-Hajja 8-12, but also the journey to get there, which reflects the history of transportation and related development.

A Beautiful Video Message from Mecca

LETTER FROM MECCA pic.twitter.com/oChq19D04a

— SNEAKO (@sneako) December 31, 2023

He captures his discovery of the spirit of Islam in Mecca and Medina. Very moving regardless of your POV.

This video eloquently expresses the impact of being in Mecca and Medina, feeling the soul of Islam as a way of life, an attitude, a sanctuary and peace he now must take home with him to the very different materialistic West.

Light and Darknesses in the Quran

This is a huge and meaningful subject, so we will touch on some basic ideas as well the locations of these mentions in the Quran, whose binary theme it graphically illustrates.

LIGHT نور is associated with: day, illumination, truth, eternity, wholeness, healing, goodness, the Quran, guidance, opening, peace, straight path (note that light rays follow a straight path), love, hope, trust, faith, sincerity, guarding the sacred, eternal values vision بصير (inner light which is a separate word).

DARKNESSES ٱلظُّلُمَـٰتِ is associated with ignorance, concealment, hiding, closure, sickness of the soul, evil, tearing apart, falsehood, crooked path, crime, loss and misleading, oppression and injustice, misery, hopelessness, despair, hate, hypocrisy, betrayal, violence, violating what is sacred, worldly values.

Why is light mentioned as singular but darknesses plural? Because light, as used in the Quran, is One and Whole, but darknesses are scattered and plural, dispersing and separating.

Two Videos Moved Me to Tears, Surprising Music by Unexpected Choruses

A Chinese chorus from Taiwan sing this original Islamic song in Arabic. You will recognize La ilaha illa Allah!

Here a children’s choir in the U.S. sing Tala Al-Badr Alayna, inspired by the music of a song sung by the ladies of Medina when prophet Mohammad arrived there in the Hijra. The arrangement of the music is original.

Two very different groups, not particularly Muslim, yet appreciate the spirit of these songs. A sign of hope in a world desperately needing it.

Oldest Recorded Quran Recitation

This YouTube video is of the oldest recorded recitation of the Quran made in Makkah in 1885 CE. It gives a little intro regarding the circumstances of the recording plus video of “the sights and sounds” of historical Makkah. It is a reading of Surat Al-Duhaa 93 “The Morning Hours,” also featured in this more recent but still historical reading by Abdel-Basit Abdulsamad.

The Only “Trinitarian” Verse in the Bible was “Fake” not part of the Original Greek Manuscript

The main difference between Islam and Christianity lies in the concept of Jesus’ “divinity,” which relies on the concept of the “Trinity.” Paul Williams gives us the history of how the single Biblical verse that explicitly describes the Trinity doctrine was actually manufactured to conform with church doctrine and authorities, who confronted Erasmus, who had originally produced a Bible without this verse, and demand he include it, although it wasn’t in the original Greek Bible. He refused to include it at first, but under pressure stated he would include it in a future version, but only if they found a genuine Greek translation that included it. This was in the 16th century.

Quranic Rhetoric Matches Its Structure

How the Quranic text conveys its message could be referred to as its “rhetoric.” The basis of a language involves principles of how language is used to convey ideas to an audience. But different languages use fundamentally different techniques and this affects how one interprets any text, including the Quran. The scholar Michel Cuypers argues that some of the confusion among Western and even modern Arabic-speaking scholars results from their misunderstanding of the linguistic basis of the Quran and how it differs from European logic. The rhetorical basis of the Quran is semitic (also the basis for Hebrew and Aramaic) rather than Greek or Latin (basis for European languages), whose approach is linear. The basis of a language is its logical core; the word for “language” in Arabic is the same word used for logic: mantaq. Thus it requires a different mindset – non-Western, which means non-linear – to appreciate the Quran’s magnificence. As Cuypers said:

“Semitic rhetoric is…entirely founded on the principle of symmetry, which confers on the text’s composition a form that is, in a way, more geometrical or spatial than linear.”

Michel Cuypers, The composition of the Quran, Bloomsbury Academic 2015

The “geometrical” aspect takes on another layer of meaning considering the Quran’s architecture as spiral, expressed on a larger scale in the Chambered Nautilus shell, itself a prime example of sacred geometry. This indicates how closely aligned the Quran’s rhetoric (its basic style and expression in words) is with its structure.

Amazing Link between First Revelation and Laylatul Qadr

While looking to verify something different in Surat Al-‘Alaq 96, I counted the number of words and letters in the first five ayat (96:1-5), which is said to be the first portion of the Quran to be revealed to prophet Mohammad (pbuh). The results are 21 words and 76 letters. If we add these two sums (something I often do with meaningful results), the total is 97, which is the number of Surat Al-Qadr, describing Laylatul Qadr, the night in which the Quran was sent down to the prophet.

It was the Spirit Jibreel (archangel Gabriel) who “brought it [the Quran] upon your [Mohammad’s] heart” (2:97), and the verse number that mentions this is also numbered 97! We can consider this to possibly mean all the Quran came down into the prophet’s heart, of which portions would be revealed over time. And it could also be that these five ayat were revealed in that same night. And so a connection between the sum of words and letters in these first revealed words and the night of their revelation could be made.

New Page published for those new to Islam and Quran

Just published! The For Those New to Islam and Quran page includes a selection of posts, a brief vocabulary list, a chart of the names of prophets in Islam, even a short video on salat, all of which focus on the meaning and purpose of Islam rather than lists of rules and regulations such as one can find anywhere. During Ramadan it seems more people are interested in the Quran, and indeed reading and studying the Quran intensifies during this beautiful and blessed month. Ramadan Mubarak to all!

What is the Purpose of Fasting Ramadan?

This post on the single Quranic aya which describes the why of fasting in the month of Ramadan, covers its purpose in the context of the aya. The purely physical benefits of “intermittent fasting,” of which Siyam (fasting) in Ramadan is an example, are surprisingly numerous. But of course, the purpose for Muslims goes deeper, and we must never forget the agony of our brothers and sisters in Palestine, but rather continue doing whatever we can to bring about justice and an end to Israel’s horrific genocide. One of the reasons to fast is to increase our sympathy with those deprived of food and water. And who is more desperately in need of these things than Palestinians? Because of the Israeli Blockade, it’s hard to know how to help. Here are some suggested ways. (Pictured above, the Palestinian sunbird.)

How the West Is Wrong

The genocide in Gaza has been an awakening for people of conscience worldwide as to the hypocrisy of the so-called “West,” whose leaders have been exposed as morally bankrupt. Whether they were ever guided by the ethics they claim to espouse is itself in doubt. Among such people of conscience are Muslims, whom the West has demonized as terrorists in lockstep obeisance to Israel and their Zionist ideology.

The West is characterized by hubris, thinking they are the elites of the world and everyone else is dross, lower-level human, and there’s this secret, subterranean drive among them to subvert the rights of “lesser” humans to make life better for the “superior” ones. If anything, the genocide proves Western leaders are devoid of what is required for people to be good: a sense of truth, justice, compassion, right and wrong. Either one believes in these values or rejects them, but the only way to reject them is to cover them up. This is the meaning of the Arabic word kufr – to cover up. And what are they covering up? Al-Fitrah, the conscience, which is, one could say, “hardwired” into our hearts/minds by our Creator. Children are born with it. Such innocents, if exposed to that which is abhorrent to the Fitrah – evil deeds, pain, torture, and abuse – will dissociate from it, literally. This is being used by certain (perhaps numerous!) Western leaders to create human slaves to serve their outward heinous needs. The entire Western project must fall, and it can’t be soon enough! It is our responsibility as Muslims to unite with all people of conscience, and be able to discern who they are, in order to establish a moral authority that is universal, compassionate, reasonable, and God-fearing. Let me define that further.

Why Don’t Muslim Countries Help Palestinians or Stop the Genocide?

The video above answers this question in about ten minutes. I would add that among the “leaders” he mentions as having been the target of the U.S. and Israel is Bashar Al-Assad, himself is a tyrant who was waging a war on his own people when they came out in peaceful demonstrations against his Nazi-style rule in the wake of the Arab Spring. Israel had no problem with Assad or his father Hafez whom they once said “did even more than us” in terms of brutality against “rebels” among his own people. Many of the leaders taken out in coups were themselves dictators, but all the Israel-US alignment did was replace them when they got problematic. But it may be the genocide itself shows these puppet regimes that Israel does not hesitate to kill anyone – and these are not the sort of guys to sacrifice themselves for a cause other than themselves.

Celestial Realm (19) vs Earthly (7) Realm Graphics

This graphic compares the upper (celestial) and lower (earthly/ dunya) hemispheres of the Quranic Architectural Chart. If we add the house (pie section/ month/ first 12 suras’) numbers as “opposite side” adjacent pairs, as shown by connecting lines in the illustration below, we find an interesting pattern that highlights the significant numbers 7 and 19 in the Quran. The dark line separates the two hemispheres, the upper half representing the “celestial timeless realm” and the lower half representing the “earthly/dunya realm of time,” a central theme in the Quran.

The large numbers of the first 12 suras are also the house or pie section numbers. A darker line divides the upper and lower hemispheres. Note the sums of the connected house numbers are highlighted in yellow to show the 7’s in the lower and the 19’s in the upper hemispheres.

The sums in the lower half all added to 7 (highlighted in yellow), and sums in the upper half all added to 19 (also highlighted in yellow), indicating the significance of these two numbers may relate to the two realms these hemispheres represent. The two realms are discussed at length in a previous post as the Unseen Al-Ghaib, which points out: “The ‘seven heavens’ likely involve ‘dimensions’ or worlds/realms’ between which are partitions (the word hijab), an example being the jinn, creatures normally invisible to humans.” But these seven heavens are likely not all in the Unseen realm; the stars we see at night are in the “lower heaven” which we can see (37:6). And although we cannot see the jinn, they are nonetheless part of the dunya, the lower realm (34:14, 72:8). Below we examine the numbers 7 and 19, and what they could mean in light of the graphic above. The number 7 is repeated more often (27x) than 19 (1x), and there may be a reason for this.