*Motherhood

  School had just closed and all the children in the lift club were excited and making plans for their holiday. Little Taskeen barely entered her home, hugged her mother, gave her a kiss and asked: “Mummy! Please can I go?” “Where to my darling?” replied her mum. “To my …

As the year draws to a close, a familiar energy fills the air. Work calendars clear, schools close their doors, and the hum of anticipation spreads through homes. Conversations revolve around travel and relaxation — a long-awaited pause from the year’s pressures. For many, this season is the long-anticipated reward: a holiday …

  Bismillahir Rahmaanir Raheem   As a Madrasah teacher, teaching high-school girls and university students, the challenges they face or get caught up in are of great and grave concern. (Other teachers who are teaching in different Makaatib will attest to the same issues.)   Many of the students attend …

   By Maulana Khalid Dhorat, Masjid Hamzah, Erasmia When the Americans dropped a small 10-kiloton nuclear bomb in the August of 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 66 000 people died instantly. A huge fireball was seen, 1000 times more intense than lightning, and people up to 10 kms away were …

  “It’s better to leave your children self-sufficient than to leave them on the mercy of others.” -Prophet Muhammad (Tirmidhi) Today’s parents are struggling to balance the fine line of being best friends with their children while at the same time setting limits and enforcing rules.  Due to the “therapization” …

  By Abu Muhammad Yusuf   Our children are a trust given to us by Allah. Depending on the upbringing we give them, we may nurture them to be morally good and upright persons or if they are just left uncared and untrained they may become innocent victims of the …

  It’s the first day in the life of baby Aamir and he is wheeled into the maternity ward to be met by his over joyous mum. It is her first child and she is bounding with delight. She holds him to her chest, cuddles and plays with him, admiring …

By Maulana Khalid Dhorat   After spending 13 or 14 cumbersome and grueling years in school, some in private Muslim schools, the Grade 12s finally reach the end of a long journey – a journey that heralds the start of a new academic phase in tertiary education, and another journey …

Ebrahim Moosa Each year the night of October 31 is commemorated by some in the non Muslim world as Halloween. This is an occasion with unmistakeable pagan roots that has also been co-opted by some Christians. In South Africa, in recent years, with many Muslims having relocated into the ‘suburbs’ …

  Nasihah (Advice): Men and women should not mix in private   Sayyiduna Jaabir Radiyallahu Anhu reported that Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, “Whoever has faith in Allah and the Last Day, let him not be secluded with an unrelated woman without her guardian lest Satan be the third of them.” …