Grand Mosque imam:
Promote values through new media
Saturday 21 February 2015
Imam and Khateeb at the Grand Mosque Sheikh Saleh Bin-Humaid called on the believers to employ the new media to promote virtue, humanitarian sentiments and values, love for others and encourage good and charitable deeds and cooperation in good deeds and piety.
''The new media has brought about various kinds of positive and negative social changes some of which are good, some bad, useful or harmful. It is a significant media platform that transcends geographical borders as people can come into contact from all corners of the world, cutting across distances of space and time. Its role is immense in the lives of individuals, families and nations and it has made giant strides in the world of communication,'' Bin-Humaid said while addressing the congregation at the Grand Mosque in Makkah on Friday.
The new media has the potential to open the doors of virtue making the path to righteousness easy, enabling a man to be obedient to Allah and engage in charitable deeds, he said.
It can also maintain the good relations between individuals, communities, relatives and friends and also between workers of the same profession and enable exchange of useful information and create a mutually loving and kind community doing virtuous deeds. It also can save time, efforts and money and communicate fast.
It is an effective means for teaching, learning and calling to Allah and offering guidance, and engage in good deeds and piety. It is also a new means to prevent evil and hostility from near and distant places,'' the imam said in his sermon.
The sheikh pointed out that officials can discover the faults in their official duties and administration, and look for better ways of performance.
On the other hand, the information networks, social media, chat rooms, blogs, personal accounts and Internet forums offer interactive relations between individuals or people at different places and positions without any time or moral restraint and so have the potential to waste one's precious time resulting in self-destruction, psychological disorders, frustration, upsetting personal relations and negligence in discharging one's responsibilities, the sheikh pointed out.
Bin-Humaid drew the attention of the believers to the perils that lurk in the new media such as spread of destructive ideologies, poor supervision and freedom from all checks and controls, no restriction in publishing permissive or pornographic contents that lead to moral degeneration, and waste of time and energy besides keeping people aloof from their families and communities, and become addicts to permissive sites.
He added that the new media also provides the platform to spread gossips, falsehoods and material for character assassination without revealing the identity of the villains. They can also be used for promoting hatred, sectarianism, enmity and disintegration of societies.
In his seron at the Prophet's Mosque in Madinah, Imam and Khateeb Sheikh Abdul Bari Al-Thobaiti called on the believers to struggle to win the love and satisfaction of the Almighty. He stressed the need for dedicated and sincere efforts to serve one's parents and the society at large.
http://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/news/707681
Grand mufti: Fighting terror is Islamic duty
Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh ... peace plea
Sunday 22 February 2015
Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh has stressed the importance of rallying all efforts from media and educational institutions to combat terrorism.
“The misuse of the religion by extremists is greatly damaging the image of Islam,” he said.
Such actions severely distort the image of Islam abroad, he said.
Those sinners attribute their inhuman actions to Islam when they claimed an Islamic State and Allah knows that the hypocrites are liars, said the grand mufti.
Al-Asheikh made these remarks during his weekly talk show while highlighting the importance of an international conference, opening in Makkah on Sunday, to discuss counter terrorism from a Muslim perspective.
Under Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman’s patronage, Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal will open the conference, titled “Islam and the Campaign Against Terror.”
The Muslim World League (MWL) is organizing the event.
According to MWL Secretary-General Abdullah Al-Turki, the theme of counterterrorism was selected because of the deeply upsetting events taking place in the world as a result of terrorist acts falsely attributed to Islam.
He declared that combating terror is a religious necessity in Islam.
“The terrorist groups, their supporters, who declare society as a whole as infidel and kill innocent people as a religious act, are misguided groups that are not following the right Islamic path,’’ said Al-Turki.
Stressing that the international community should confront those supporting terrorism, the secretary-general pointed out that terrorist organizations are inciting sedition in Muslim communities.
Al-Turki claimed that MWL subsidiaries in various countries have been striving to fight against terror.
“The conference will also focus on the Kingdom’s tireless efforts to combat terror and also the implementation of the Shariah law and the mutual support between the Kingdom’s people and its leaders,” said the MWL secretary-general.
Several academics and officials from Islamic centers and societies across the world are taking part in the conference.
The first session will focus on the definition of terror from the Islamic perspective and also its definition from the international standpoint, as well as the use of religion as an umbrella for terror.
http://www.arabnews.com/news/708161