Sultan Baybars & Imam Nawawi.

Al Salamu 'Alaykum.
Imam Nawawi came into conflict with Dhahir Baybars, the ruler of Sham and Egypt. Dhahir requested a fatwa from the scholars that money should be collected in order to prepare an army to fight the Tatars in 658 H. When the Tatars occupied Baghdad and advanced upon Palestine and turned towards Sham, he requested a fatwa while the Tatars were in Palestine that money should be collected to purchase weapons.
Every single scholar issued the fatwa except for an-Nawawi. He said: “I will not provide you with such a fatwa.”
Dhahir asked: “Why not? I want to purchase arms for this struggle, and you refuse to issue a fatwa for it? The entire Ummah and Religion will be exposed to loss.”
He replied: “Because you came to us as a slave who owned nothing, and I see that you now own gardens, servants, slave girls, silver, and gold. So, if you sell all of these things and still need money after that, I will issue the fatwa you seek.”
He said: “Leave Sham.”
And he left and went to a small village in Nawa (his hometown). The scholars came to Dhahir Baybras and said to him: “The scholars of Sham are nothing without Muhi ad-Din an-Nawawi.”
He replied: “Bring him back.” They then went to an-Nawawi and said: “Come back, O Muhi ad-Din.”
Nawawi said: “By Allah, I will not go back while Dhahir is in it,” and Allah fulfilled his oath: Dhahir died a month later, and an-Nawawi returned to Sham.
['Fi Dhilal Surat at-Tawbah'; p. 67-68]
Taken from Iskandrani.

Islam Only For Arabs?



Al Salamu 'Alaykum.

One common myth among non-Muslims is that all or most Muslims are Arabs. This is untrue. While it is true that the last Prophet, Muhammad (saws) was born in Arabia and the Islamic faith spread from there, it is also true that the Muslim community is a global community, alhamdulillah and its largest portion is in the Far East rather than in Arabia. Also, there are more Muslims in China than in Syria and in Germany than in Lebanon.

Approximately 62% of the world’s Muslims live in Asia with the largest Muslim country by population being Indonesia. Indonesia has approximately 200 million Muslims and accounts for 13% of the world’s Muslim population.

Arab Muslims account for only 20% of the entire Ummah and in the Middle East, two non-Arab countries, Turkey and Iran are the largest Muslim majority countries. Islam is also the predominant religion of North Africa. Egypt and Nigeria have the most populous Muslim communities in Africa.

The following figures are based on the demographic study by the Pew Research Center report of Mapping the Global Muslim Population, as of 8 October 2009:

Asia Pacific: 972,537,000
Middle East-North Africa: 315,322,000
Sub-Saharan Africa: 240,632,000
Europe: 38,112,000
Americas: 4,596,000
Total: 1,571,198,000.

The top twenty Muslim countries by Population are as follows:

1. Indonesia.
2. Pakistan.
3. India.
4. Bangladesh.
5. Egypt.
6. Turkey.
7. Iran.
8. China.
9. Nigeria.
10. Ethiopia.
11. Morocco.
12. Algeria.
13. Afghanistan.
14. Sudan.
15. Saudi Arabia.
16. Iraq.
17. Uzbekistan.
18. Yemen.
19. Syria.
20. Tanzania.

And that puts that particular myth to rest.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population

Wa'laykum Salam.