Announcements

Dear brothers and sisters, Alsalamo alikom   The timing for the Weekly Halaqa (study circle) for brothers and sisters has been changed. it will be held on Friday of every week at 7 pm, starting this Friday October 31st. This change from Saturday was intended to free saturday especially for families who send there children to Sunday school.   Insha allah, we intend to have a monthly day of Qiyam, where we will spend most of the night to pray, reed quran, and other islamic activities. this is very important for us, adults, to recharge our iman. And for older children to learn this Sunnah. this will be held the first friday of every month. next qiyam will be on friday November 7th, inshaallah. The monthly potluck will continue. it will now be the last Friday of every month at 7 pm.   The up coming Eid Aladha party will be held inshaallah on Tuesday December 9th at 5 pm. details and location will be announced when finalized by the social committee.   Eid prayer will be held in the masjed in Orono at 9 am. Exact day of Eid will be known only 10 days prior to that date.   Last but very important is that our long awaited expansion project is progressing. the plan is to build a new building on the same location we have in Orono. the current building will be used until the new building is finished then the old one will be removed to allow the new building to visible from  Park street. the land survey which was the initial step has finished. two engineers from Michigan who built 2 different islamic centers in Michigan are working on the design of our building. I will provide you with more details about the design when it becomes available to me.  the next step would be to get the city of Orono approval of the project before we can start the actual building. We have already been in contact with the city and there approval should not be a problem. It is just a matter of providing them with the site plan and other routine things.   The limiting factor would be the financials, although I am very optimistic inshallah.  this is something we all need to work on together to be able to accomplish. we need to depend on our selves first and show our commitment to our community before we can ask other communities to help us.  any financial contribution, or an idea or activity that can help in this matter is direly needed. especially if you have personal connection in other communities please contact them and let them know about our project and needs.  I estimate the cost to be around $500,000, currently we have close to $200,000.   alsalamo alikom   Mohammad Tabbah    

Message from Dr Jalal

Dear brothers and sisters alsalamo alikom   On December 26 a combined meeting of the board of trustees and the executive committee of the Islamic center of Maine was held.  The following is a synopsis of important changes and announcements.   1-      General body meeting will be held on Friday November 28th at 7 pm, after the Halaqa. Members and non members are welcomed. 2-      Membership renewals are due by January 1st, 2009. New members need to fill a membership application (attached).  Old members do not need to do that.   3-      Membership dues are donations to the Masjid and will be used for the up-keep of the Masjid.  Membership dues  are graded as follows:      $20 per student      $150 per couple (husband and wife) with a household annual income of less than $100,000      $400 per couple (husband and wife) with a household annual income of more than $100,000      Members who do not pay their dues by January 15th will forfeit their right to vote in the upcoming election. 4-      Election for one seat of the board of trustees for a 6 years term will start on January 15th 2009. Only members who paid their membership dues and have been members for more than 2 months are eligible to vote. Any member 35 years or older is eligible to be nominated to the board. For details please review the attached ICM constitution.   Alsalamo alikom

Islamic Center of Maine (EID Celebration)

Area Muslims mark end of Ramadan at Orono celebration BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY JOHN CLARKE RUSS Yazan Abdulrahman, 2, looks curiously at the photographer as his father, Aymn Abdulrahman (next to him), of Orono and other observers bow and recite prayers at the Islamic Center of Maine in Orono during Tuesday morning?s service to mark the end of Ramadan. Buy Photo By Judy Harrison BDN Staff ORONO, Maine — Colorful balloons and festive signs that declared, “Eid mubarik,” decorated the walls of the Islamic Center of Maine to mark the end of Ramadan. Worshippers gathered Tuesday morning to pray and celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the feast days that begin after a month of fasting, prayer and study. About 100 people, many of them students, gathered at the mosque on U.S. Route 2 in Orono just north of the entrance to the University of Maine. They greeted each other with the traditional salutation, “Eid mubarik,” which means “May God make it a blessed feast.” Others responded with “Eid karim” or “May God make it a kind feast.” Ramadan is the ninth month of the year for the followers of Mohammed, who observe a lunar calendar. The holiday takes place 13 days earlier each year according to the solar calendar. Ramadan began at sunrise Sept. 1 and ended with the sighting of the new moon on Monday. During Ramadan, all healthy adult Muslims abstain from food, drink, smoking and sexual activity from sunrise to sunset. The month is to be devoted to reflection and spiritual discipline, as well as the reading of the Quran, which was revealed to the prophet Mohammed by Allah during the final days of Ramadan. Followers also are expected to perform good deeds and pray more often than the usual five times a day, including each evening in a mosque with other Muslims, if possible. Muslims believe fasting teaches patience and compassion and also earns them special favor with Allah. Any good deed done during Ramadan is amplified in the eyes of God. Britney Harris, 20, of Brunswick observed her third Ramadan last month. She converted to Islam from Christianity about three years ago. The junior, who is majoring in child development, said that the rigors of Ramadan are rewarding but also challenging. “It slows me down,” she said Tuesday. “I find that when I’m thinking about being hungry, I look at what I have and I take the things I have and cherish them more than I take them for granted. I see the things that I have every day and I appreciate them.” Harris said that she found it was difficult to study during the afternoon while she was fasting, but enjoyed gathering at the mosque every evening at sundown for a meal with other Muslim students and community members. “The whole experience of Ramadan is rewarding to me,” said Omar Conteh, 23, of Bangor. “I appreciate everything about it, from the spiritual experience to people being together, learning, teaching and advising each other.” A student at University College of Bangor, Conteh has lived in Bangor for more than 10 years. He played soccer for Bangor High School before graduating. “This year was the easiest Ramadan for me,” he said. “Maybe it is because I’ve gotten a little older, but it’s been a very pleasant Ramadan. I enjoyed it a lot.” The Muslim community in Greater Bangor is flexible about when and where it observes the community feast day that marks the end of Ramadan. The mosque, a doublewide pre-fabricated building, is not large enough for the event since family, friends and people wanting to learn more about the faith attend. This year, the Eid al-Fitr celebration party will be from 3 to 6 p.m. Sunday at the Isaac Farrar Mansion at Second and Union streets in Bangor. The public is invited.

Islamic perspective on meltdown in US markets

Islamic perspective on meltdown in US markets The Middle East's Leading English Language Daily Monday 29 September 2008 (29 Ramadan 1429) Islamic perspective on meltdown in US markets By: Liaquat Ali Khan — (Liaquat Ali Khan is professor of law at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas.) Call it the consequences of irresponsible American invasions, call it the irrational exuberance of short sellers, call it the catastrophe of subprime lending, call it the mismanagement of leveraged products, blame it as you may, American markets are facing unprecedented meltdown and doomsayers see little promise in the federal bailout package. Ironically, the Wall Street has noticed that Shariah-compliant investments - which avoid speculative risk and debt-ridden greed - have fared much better in these troubled markets. In the past few years, Shariah-compliant investments in Western markets have grown to more than half a trillion dollars. Islamic financing is attracting huge academic curiosity. Many experts participating in the 8th Harvard University Forum on Islamic Finance held this past April wondered if Islamic financing could have prevented the meltdown that American markets are facing primarily due to mortgage debt and mortgage-backed securities - now known as "toxic investments." High risk investments The Qur'an prohibits al-maysir or speculative risk, warning the faithful to avoid games of chance in which the probability of loss is much higher than the probability of gain. Shariah-compliant investments, therefore, avoid speculative risk, including interest rate options, naked equity options, futures, derivative and numerous leveraged products purportedly designed to hedge investments. Many of these financial products attract speculators in hopes of making quick money. When trusted fund managers, under institutional pressures to show profit, resort to speculative risk, hedge investments turn into suicidal strategies for financial destruction. In pursuit of greed and thrill, straightforward investments in companies engaged in socially useful activity has become unattractive, even boring, because of their presumably lower rate of return - frequently a self-fulfilling prophecy. Billions of dollars are dumped into companies that promise huge profits but produce nothing. While Islam would allow risking investments in socially beneficial research projects, it prohibits investments in companies peddling alcohol, tobacco, pornography, debt, and weapons-products that undermine our health and safety. Some investment strategies rampant in the markets are not only morally corrupt but socially harmful. Short sellers, for example, make money when companies collapse and close. Turning the conventional logic of investment on its head, short sellers wish companies to crash rather than prosper for they make most money when companies go bankrupt, workers and employees lose jobs, and pension funds evaporate through declining company stock. Such cynical investments, touted as useful forces that balance the market, are contrary to Islamic law. Interest-bearing debt In addition to prohibiting high risk investments, the Qur'an also prohibits no risk investments. The prohibition against riba, interest on loans, is strictly forbidden. Islam does not prohibit passive investments. Nor does it prohibit giving interest-free loans. Debt is not contrary to Islamic law. Charging interest is. Although some experts argue that usury, and not interest, is prohibited under Islamic law. Most Muslim scholars agree, however, that interest on loans is contrary to the Shariah. Refuting arguments that money has time value or that interest is analogous to profit, the Qur'an offers a categorical principle that "trade is permitted but interest is not." The prohibition against interest was revealed not only to save the poor from unscrupulous lenders but also to deter investors who demand a set return on their investments and decline to take the risk of engaging in useful trade. Contrary to Islamic principles, lending in general and subprime lending in particular was predestined to harm American financial markets for two distinct reasons. First, debt braced with high interest was being extended to persons who simply could not afford to pay back loans. This was usury. Second, the real estate mortgage was no longer a prudent investment decision, since numerous investors were trading in real estate with inflated prices. Investment bankers and other geniuses on Wall Street were securitizing mortgage debts, turning them into interest-bearing securities. These fancy securities began to fail when their underlying assets were foreclosed or deflated. The debt turned deadly and its holders bankrupt. Shared destruction Between the prohibited limits of al-maysir (speculative risk) and riba (no risk), however, Islamic law permits creativity in financial markets where investors mobilize surplus monies for the production and distribution of halal (Kosher) goods and services. These permissible markets are neither risk-free nor prone to irresponsible risk. Though innovative and authentic, the markets are infused with the values of fairness, transparency, and reasonable profits. They are free of predatory practices that corrupt transactions with greed and inflict hardship on the poor, the elderly, and the novice. The federal bailout package that the Bush administration is selling as a quick cure of all problems will only aggravate the underlying cancer of interest-bearing debt. It is unlikely that the infusion of more money will reform institutions and companies built on layers of interest-bearing debt. When the best and the brightest are engrossed in finding ways to make money with money, and no more, the system may look creative and intelligent but it is geared toward shared destruction. Copyright: Arab News (c) 2003 All rights reserved. Site designed by: arabix