Brothers Account of the Rihal Programme

I met a brother, called Sagir Hassam, known to all his close friends and family as "Hagi almost over a year ago during my charity fundraising campaign to walk up Mount Snowdon.

This brother is a brother with much energy, you would think he has a power plant connected to his orifices, never mind Duracell AA long lasting batteries. However his heart is in the right place and that what counts. He embarked on a journey last month on the Rihla Programme and yesterday came to present and share his experience with his colleagues and close freinds.

More about the Deen intensive programme can be found on:

http://www.deenintensive.com/

Another very close brother of mines, Zakaria Timms also went on this programme. I was very much moved by the presentaion, especially the warmth of brother Hagis love for learning about Islam, Our Prophet (pbuh) as well as the smallest and beautiful things that he had experienced on his journey.

There were many people that brother Hagi had mentioned and my mind is not so great in trying to download them now onto cyberspace so easily, I will IA endeaver to do as this is something I would like to learn more about.

This years program was held in the blessed cities of Madinah, Mecca and Taif during the month of July.

The Teachers that were present in the Rihla programme included:
Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah
Shaykh Abdullah al-Kadi
Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad
Ustadh Abdel Hadi Honerkamp
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf
Ustadh Yahya Rhodus

I will look more at the works of these scholars in due course IA.

Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad

Born Timothy J. Winter in 1960, Abdal Hakim studied at the prestigious Westminster School in London, UK and later at the University of Cambridge, where he graduated with first class honours in Arabic in 1983. He then lived in Cairo for three years, studying Islam under traditional teachers at Al-Azhar, one of the oldest universities in the world. He went on to reside for three years in Jeddah, where he administered a commercial translation office and maintained close contact with Habib Ahmad Mashhur al-Haddad and other ulama from Hadramaut, Yemen.

In 1989, Sheikh Abdal Hakim returned to England and spent two years at the University of London learning Turkish and Farsi. Since 1992 he has been a doctoral student at Oxford University, specializing in the religious life of the early Ottoman Empire. In 1996, he was appointed University Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge.

Sheikh Abdal Hakim is the translator of a number of works, including two volumes from Imam al-Ghazali Ihya Ulum al-Din. He gives durus and halaqas from time to time and taught the works of Imam al-Ghazali at the Winter 1995 Deen Intensive Program in New Haven, CT. He appears frequently on BBC Radio and writes occasionally for a number of publications including The Independent and Q-News International, Britain's premier Muslim Magazine.

He lives with his wife and children in Cambridge, UK.

Globalised before Globalisation

http://www.radicalmiddleway.co.uk/events.php?id=2&art=29