Youth Matters

Brother Wisam Sharieff is a popular instructor for Bayyinah Institute, which specializes in Arabic Education in North America.
Follow his Blog: “Knowledge Travels” for bite-size vidoes on studying abroad, arabic, tajweed, quran etc.
you can follow his blog here:  Knowledge Travels

Assalaamu Alaykum,
My name is Wisam Sharieff, I’m currently in Alexandria, Egypt and studying at Qortoba Institute for Arabic Studies along with a group of students from North America. Welcome to my blog ” Knowledge Travels”, come and join us as we Travel on the quest for Knowledge.

from Bayyinah Arabic Institute
Wisam is the lead instructor at Bayyinah for the Essentials of Tajweed; a sub-division of the Qur’anic Arabic track of study. Additionally, Wisam is also in the midst of preparing Bayyinah’s online Arabic Reading for Beginners course.   He is by far one of the most creative and energetic instructors of the subject around.  Students rave about the energy and enthusiasm in his courses and he has quickly become one of the most popular instructors at Bayyinah.  He completed memorization of the Noble Quran by the age of 16 at the Islamic Institute of Education in Chicago, Illinois and went on to study the science of Tajweed formally at Al-Fajr Institute in Cairo, Egypt. Upon his return to the United States, he taught the science of Tajweed, Islamic history and Hifz for 2 years. Thereafter his quest for Islamic knowledge lead him to Quran Academy in Lahore, Pakistan where he earned a Bachelors in Arabic & Islamic literature. Returning once again to the States, he dedicated himself to teaching a very successful and popular Tajweed & Hifz program in Long Island, New York. He developed a unique curriculum for letter recognition, writing and fluid reading, that upon execution, displayed remarkable results among young & old alike. His second area of concern became Tajweed instruction where again his innovative curriculum helped hundreds of students in the New York area acquire an in-depth knowledge of the science in a relatively short amount of time.

Ma sha Allah, exquisite video in 3D animation walks through a proposed remodeling of al-haram.

Watch in High Quality, full screen.

One of the millions of people making the pilgrimmage to Mecca was Omar Regan, a Hollywood actor who appeared as a double for Chris Tucker in the film Rush Hour 2. Al Jazeera’s Sami Zeidan reports from Saudi Arabia where he tracks down the comedic actor and talks to Regan about his journey from Hollywood to Hajj.

Technology + Islam= Ease of performing Ibadaat

Counting down to prayer significantly changes your daily schedule; in a positive way! 

Beats the Athaan blazing during a PowerPoint presentation. Take Advantage.

Make sure to check the calculation settings.

Prayer Times!

I found a new favorite site.

….

…

.

  Too Awesome

About us section:
The authors are:

—>Abu ‘Iyad Amjad bin Muhammad Rafiq (BSc Medicinal Biochemistry, PhD Biochemistery)
—>Abu Aisha Saeed bin Saalih (BSc, PhD Medicinal Biochemister Pharmaceutical R&D, GlaxoSmithKline (previously)

“Following sound faith (eemaan) and pure monotheism (tawheed), one of the greatest assets that a Muslim can have is good health. Good health facilitates the fulfilment of the religious and worldly obligations. It empowers a Muslim to do good deeds for his or her own benefit and for the benefit of the society at large. It makes a Muslim productive and optimistic and this only brings further benefits to the society as a whole.”

“Despite billions and billions being poured into what we are told is “objective scientific research” diseases and illnesses only increase in occurrence and major breakthroughs are never in the horizon. Cancer, diabetes, heart disease and myriads of other diseases and ailments increase day by day. The true and real reasons for all of these failings of the body come back down – in the overwhelming majority of disease conditions – to the principles of nutrition, diet, state of mind, and lifestyle.“
For More, check out the wonderful resource; HealthyMuslim.com

—————————————————————————————————————————————-
So, We’ve all heard the aunties and uncles rave about ‘black seed.’ Turns out they were right.

Don’t be intimidated by the titles, the author has kindly included a one line summary for the layman.

Research Summaries on Nigella Sativa (Black Seed) – Part 1

This is a summary page of research papers published on nigella sativa, the black seed. In this list we will simply mention the results or conclusions of the research paper, trying to quote or summarize the stated conclusions in each paper.

“There is within the black seed a cure for every disease except death“, From the statements of the Prophet (sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam), Sahih al-Bukhari, Chapter on medicine.

Note that these studies are based on both human and non-human subjects. Where it is the latter, it is an indication that further exploration in human subjects is an avenue that can be embarked upon to identify the effects of the black seed (nigella sativa) in those states.

Cardioprotective Effects of nigella sativa oil on Cyclosporine A-Induced Cardiotoxicity in Rats

The results of our study show that pre-treatment with N. sativa oil reduced the subsequent cyclosporine A injury in rat heart, demonstrated by normalized cardiac histopathology, decrease in lipid peroxidation, improvement in antioxidant enzyme status and cellular protein oxidation.

Basic Clin Pharmacol Toxicol. 2008 Sep 17

.

For dummies: NS (nigella sativa) has a protective effect on the heart following its injury.

Nigella sativa relieves the deleterious effects of ischemia reperfusion injury on liver

Our results suggest that nigella sativa treatment protects the rat liver against to hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury.

World J Gastroenterol. 2008 Sep 7;14(33):5204-9.

For dummies: NS has a protective effect on potential liver injury caused by a (sudden) restrictive blood supply.

Antihypertensive effect of nigella sativa seed extract in patients with mild hypertension

The results suggest that the daily use of NS seed extract for 2 months may have a blood pressure-lowering effect in patients with mild HT (hypertension).

Fundam Clin Pharmacol. 2008 Aug;22(4):447-52

.

For dummies (this one’s quite clear): NS displays blood pressure-lowering effects in people with hypertension (high blood-pressure)

Role of nigella sativa and a number of its antioxidant constituents towards azoxymethane-induced genotoxic effects and colon cancer in rats

Although the exact mechanisms involved in the protective role of nigella sativa against the initiation of colon carcinogenesis are not clearly understood, the results suggest that its inhibitory effects might depend on the combined competitive inhibition of various antioxidant constituents of this plant

Phytother Res. 2008 Oct;22(10):1311-23.

For dummies (fairly clear): NS and other molecules from the plant have a combined preventative effect against cancer initiation in the colon.

Symptomatic treatment of acute tonsillo-pharyngitis patients with a combination of nigella sativa and Phyllanthus niruri extract

At the end of treatment (Day 7), a significantly greater proportion of patients in the NSPN group than in the placebo group had their sore throat completely relieved. NSPN extract was also found to be safe and well tolerated in acute tonsillopharyngitis patients. This study proved significant benefits of NSPN extract in the treatment of acute tonsillopharyngitis as compared to placebo.

Int J Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2008 Jun;46(6):295-306.

For dummies (although this one does use fairly plain language): NS plays a role in the relief of sore throat.