Eid Mubarak, Selamat Hari Raya Korban! The 6th Annual Brass Crescent Awards have been announced. Congratulations to all the winners. If you haven’t subscribed yet to Islam in China, Muslimah Media Watch and Seekers Guidance, you ought to do it right now. I’m very happy to be mentioned along with Folio, Al-Miskeenah, and the Manrilla, honorable people all. Keep your eyes on TalkIslam and AltMuslim to take part in the contest next time. Thanks to everybody who voted.

Photographs from the yearly Muslim Fashion Festival 2007, brought to you by AltMuslimah’s Photographic Campaign.

….is finding out how many of your problems are not caused by Shaytan.

that I withdrew my blog from the face of the internet for the last three weeks to get holy for Ramadan, but that would be a lie. My domain expired without warning again , leaving bingregory.com to redirect to some tacky ad page, and it took me this long to get the affair straightened out. Clearly I need a better registrar. But Bin Gregory Productions is back, not going anywhere and the interruption is regretted. Ramadan Mubarak to one and all.

Manaqib Productions is releasing the Mawlid Barzanji on CD in August, with a booklet of the Arabic verses and English translation. The first chapter is available for preview in mp3 form, via Abdassamad Clarke, who has been involved in the production. Mawlid Barzanji is the most commonly recited mawlid in Malaysia. Copies of it are found in every masjid and surau throughout the country and it is a superb way of making salawat for Allah’s Beloved.

Don’t miss the premiere of New Muslim Cool, airing June 23rd on PBS as part of the POV series. There’s a trailer to get you started, and an interview with the filmmaker on AltMuslim. Via TalkIslam.

it’s also hard not to feel some compassion for what looks like a group of struggling, credulous, under-educated men, existing on the fringes of society, who lacked the intelligence or willpower to avoid getting taken in by a government informant anxious to mitigate his own situation, and by their own vague understanding of radical Islam and the hole it might fill in their lives.
TMP, via TalkIslam
Abdul Rahman explains that the real story for the muslim community is the way CAIR is going to let them hang.

My mother used to sing this to me when I was little, and I sing it to my kids now. I’d never heard good old Woody sing it, but by the power of the internet, here it is.

This popular introductory text on Shafi’i Fiqh is now available in English translation. This is the text I had been learning from in Kuching, struggling to learn from an Arabic text with Bahasa Malaysia explanations. This will help me enormously. Translated by Ê¿Abdullah Muḥammad al-MarbÅ«qÄ« al-ShāfiÊ¿Ä«, God bless him for his efforts, and graciously made available for download from Abul Layth of Seekingilm.com. (You’ll need to register with the site first.)
[Update: Apparently the translation is coming through the efforts of the Madrasah In’amiyyah from South Africa, …

“The United States has been enriched by Muslim-Americans,” Barack Obama said. “Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country.
“I know,” he said, “because I am one of them.”
Lived abroad as a child, relocated to the Great Lakes Basin, speaks Bahasa Malaysia, named after the Prophet’s family… I couldn’t possibly feel more direct personal affinity for Barack Obama unless it turned out he, too, had a Black Jewish cousin. Hang on a minute!