It is 1430 Hijri. Our good deeds, our sins, and the thoughts that passed through our minds in the passed year are all sealed in our books of deeds for us to read when we meet our Lord. This moment is a chance for us to plan for the next year. To plan to be a better Muslim.

May Allah forgive the shuhada of Gaza and we ask Allah to grant the mujahideen victory. These are a few thoughts on the meaning of what happened and is happening in Gaza:
First: We have been successfully desensitized by the enemy. The meager response to this atrocity is nowhere close to the support that is expected from the Muslim Ummah for a part of it that is suffering in pain. Rasulullah(saaws) waged war on the Jews for their attack on one Muslim woman. So far the death toll is approaching three hundred and all what we see is condemnations, demonstrations and Arab leaders calling for another useless summit. This necessitates that we raise the awareness of the people around us to what is happening and what our responsibility is.

Reply to the Greeting and Advice of Sheikh Anwar AlAwlaki

Sabti 29 Dul-Xijjah 1429 (27/12/2008)

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله

Reply to the Greeting and Advice of Sheikh Anwar

O beloved Sheikh Anwar,

The Western media has always been distorting the truth. But that should come as no suprise since they are the descendants of the ones who distorted the books of Allah themselves.
The Daily Telegraph under the heading: “Muslim groups ‘linked to September 11 hijackers spark fury over conference’” have made a few lies against myself. The first: “The End of Time event at the East London Mosque, which is being publicised on internet sites including Facebook, will feature a videotaped lecture from Anwar al-Awlaki, who is banned from entering the United States after allegedly acting as a spiritual adviser to three of the September 11 terrorists.”
The truth of the matter is I am not banned from return to the US. I left the US on my own accord and refuse to return by my own choice. In fact the opposite is true. The US consul encouraged me to return to the US  during his visit to me while I was incarcerated. Alhamdulillah Allah has blessed me with living in a blessed land by the witness of Rasulullah. Why should I replace that with life in the US? But I refuse to even visit the US because the US government is not to be trusted as they are liars just like their media. In the article the US Department of Homeland Security, accused me of using video lectures in recent months to “encourage terrorist attacks”.
Not only in the past months but in the past five years I have not published a single video lecture.
The article quotes Charles Allen, America’s undersecretary of homeland security for intelligence and analysis as saying that I was a spiritual advisor for three of the September 11 hijackers. This is a baseless claim that I have refuted again and again during the FBI’s interrogations and with the media. The US government and the media still insist on spreading this lie around.
He also claimed that I target “US Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from [my] new home in Yemen”.
I would challenge him to come up with one such lecture where I encourage “terrorist attacks.”
These are examples of lies made in just one article!

The shoes of the journalist and the bullets of the fighters of Afghanistan and Iraq are a reflection of the feelings of the Muslims towards America. But the leaders feel otherwise.

We are following your recent news and it fills our hearts with immense joy. We would like to congratulate you for your victories and achievements.

Didn’t G.W. Bush say that the Americans would be greeted in the streets of Baghdad with flowers and roses?
Seven years later G.W. Bush himself is greeted with a pair of shoes!
Yesterday while Bush was speaking at the office of the Iraqi prime minister in Baghdad, an Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at the President, who ducked it, only to have the second shoe thrown at him, and again he ducked it. The President has been showing off his skills of ducking since 9-11. The man said: “This is the farewell kiss you dog!” and then he said: ““This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.”
Both, the throwing of the shoe and calling him a dog are ultimate forms of humiliation and disrespect in the Arab world. This, alHamdulillah, is proper greeting for this invader of Muslim land. But the even more proper treatment is that which is leveled against the invading troops on the streets of Baghdad.
The shoes of this journalist are better than those leaders in the Arab world who paraded their daughters to dance for Bush.
Before the Green Zone Scholars, and RAND Muslims, the promoters of the fiqh of humiliation, step up to the stage in defense of Bush and claim that this act is ‘against the Sunnah!’ let it be known that the Muslim is kind with the disbeliever who is decent and pays due respect to Islamic authority, but the Muslim is harsh against the arrogant and the transgressor. The words of Rasulullah to the leaders of Quraish were: “I came to with slaughter,” Abu Bakr cursed the disbelievers in Hudaybiyyah, and Omar would consistently beat these disbelievers, curse them and threaten them. On another note, and as ridiculous as it may sound, for those who say that al Maliki is “wali amr” and as Muslims we should not revolt against him, is this journalist at sin for not having sought the permission of al Maliki to throw his shoes? Because to them, this is definitely an act of fitnah!
Unfortunately he missed. As someone on the net has rightfully stated:
“Nobody wants to see President Bush being missed by a flying shoe like this. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity that has been missed here.”
In the End, if anyone of you gets to know the brand of shoes this journalist was wearing please inform us about it. We would all like to go out and buy some, in solidarity with our brother!

I recently recieved this email from a brother:

Aassalamualaikum sheikh. i loved your works, enjoyed and learned from them. i do desire to become one of the mujahideen but not as you describe. i desire to become a mujahid in da’wah and learning and believe this is the right path. I heard and read some of your views on what the muslims should do and belive them not to be true. i think you should review your works and when you find the true path, apologize about your previous works. jihad cant be the right path because this is a religion of peace and if we go around killing everyone, it would be wrong for us to call this religion a religion of peace. what the muslims should do is evacuate palistine and afghanistan and continue with the da’wah and the
rest is with ALLAH inshalah.

Assalamu alaykum dear brothers and sisters,

Allahu akbar Allahu akbar Allahu akbar, la illaha illallah, Allahu akbar Allahu akbar wa lilllahil hamd.
We ask Allah to bless us during these special days and to accept our good deeds.
Rasulullah says about these days:”They are days of eating and drinking and remembrance of Allah.” Therefore one should enjoy the halal blessings of Allah during these days and increase their remembrance of Allah. Yes, the halal is to be enjoyed and we are rewarded for this enjoyment. This is a meaning that is sometimes forgotten. But after we enjoy these blessings we need to thank Allah for them. The slaughtering on eid of animals and feeding on what is a gift from Allah demands our gratitude.
So we should remember Allah, praise Him and seek His forgiveness during these moments.
We should also make dua for the Muslims who are struggling in Allah’s cause, our brothers who are behind bars and the less fortunate who are struggling with poverty around the world.

Al-Hakim narrates with an authentic chain that Rasulullah was traveling with his companions when a bird came flapping it’s wings over his head. The Messenger of Allah said: ‘Who has brought grief to this bird?” One of the companions said: “I have taken some of its young ones.” Rasulullah ordered him to return them to their mother.
Rasulullah was leading an army on a travel for Jihad, the peak of Islam, but he was still teaching the sahabah about an issue as simple as mercy towards a bird.
There are some brothers and sisters who expressed concern when I talked about the opinions of scholars regarding cheese at a time when we have more important issues at hand that are of great concern to the ummah. I would like to take this opportunity to point out an important principle in Islam and that is: Islam is a comprehensive religion that covers all aspects of our life and every Islamic teaching is important. Rasulullah has taught us minute aspects of life that would otherwise seem trivial such as how to eat, growing a beard, and even manners of responding to the call of nature. If these were trivial issues Rasulullah would not have wasted his time teaching us about them, the Sahabah would not have narrated them and our scholars would not have documented them in their books of hadith and fiqh. The topic of cheese is even more important because it relates to what enters our body. It is enough to state that our dua would not be accepted if our food is haraam. So the rulings of diet are very important .
Some of these people who do not recognize the importance of the smaller issues told Salman al Farisi: “We see that your Prophet has taught you everything even about excrements” Salman said: “Yes he did. He taught us not to face qibla when urinating or defecating, not to use our right hands in washing ourselves, not to use less than three stones and not to use dung or bones” (narrated by Muslim and others.) The Messenger of Allah who taught us this was also a head of state and a leader of Jihad.
When one understands the wisdom behind the comprehensiveness of the teachings of Islam nothing is trivial anymore. When we understand that every moment in our lives, every movement, and every act should be for the sake of Allah we appreciate the reason why Rasulullah taught us about everything.
The problem is not in talking about the sunnah in matters that one may assume to be trivial but the problem is when one talks about the beard to the exclusion of Tawhid, wearing the clothes above the ankle to the exclusion of Jihad, or the miswak to the exclusion of wala and bara.
On the other hand, it is even a more serious problem when people occupy themselves with the mustahab ( the recommended) and ignore the major issues, some of which are issues of aqeedah. There are some that escape from the responsibilities that demand sacrifice to the safety of the easy rituals. We need to take Islam as a whole. We should follow Quran and the way of Rasulullah in all matters.