Dr. Yasir Qadhi's Series of Lectures on Seerah of Prophet Muhammed (pbuh)

Today (the original post date was November 20th 2015) I finished listening to one of the most significant lecture series in my life - Dr. Yasir Qadhi's Series of Lectures on Seerah of Prophet Muhammed (pbuh). Initially I was listening to it from YouTube after knowing about it from Wali Bhai. Later Amin told me that he found an iPhone App named Yasir Qadhi where all these lectures are available in audio format and I could download it and listen to the audios offline. So this saved my data plan as in my first month I already crossed my 40GB plan just by listening to it while driving to office and coming back.

It's a 104 part lecture series containing approximately 175 hours of lectures by Pakistani descent but American muslim scholar Dr. Yasir Qadhi who stayed in Madina for 10 years for his islamic studies. Any muslim or non-muslim will be moved listening to this series. You will learn to be humble, polite, wise and humane to others. Dr. Yasir focused mainly on 2 things - rigorous academic analysis of Prophet's (pbuh) life, actions, teachings and the situations of Arab at that time; and how the we can relate those to our 21st century American muslim life.

I was in awe many times just listening to the incidents, just thinking about the patience of Sahabis (R) and their love for Islam and our Prophet (pbuh). Often I have been laughing loud or crying while driving on the way listening through my headphone, disappointed that I reached office or home already while in the middle of a great analysis of a particular fiqh issue. This work by Dr. Yasir is one of the most profound of its nature in English language. I can't think of anything else comparable.

I invite you to listen to it. I will now move into his other lectures, and then probably into Mughal, Roman and Persian empires, second world war, Mahabharat and so on that are freely available in YouTube.

Update: I have finished the Seerah series for a second time yesterday. Alhamdulillah. It was as beautiful as I felt when I finished it the first time in November last year!

What should be the rule for daily 5 times prayer on planets where the day/night length is different than on earth?

As Salam u Alaikum. I would like to ask you a hypothetical question and please don't be upset or angry with me for asking something that may sound as a waste of time or of no immediate benefit to us. I seek Allah's refuge if my question makes you uncomfortable in any way.

As Science and Technology is exponentially leaping forward with time, the question may get relevant in a few centuries from today. I am sure that the Ulama of that time will come to an ijmaa that will satisfy the Muslims, but I am curious to do the thought experiment now to understand how an Islamic Scholar comes to the conclusion on a particular controversial topic.

Assume a time when human being starts colonizing different planets in different solar systems. For our example, one group of Muslims migrate to a planet where a day consists of one-fifth of earth time i.e. 4 hours 48 minutes a day. And another group of Muslims migrate to a planet where a day is 5 times longer compared to earth i.e. 120 hours a day. So the day and night cycle happens very quickly in first planet and very slowly in the other planet. We further assume that no major biological change happened to human beings in the meantime and hence people sleeps for 6 hours in every 24 hours time no matter in which planet they inhabit. Compared to standard earth time then, in 120 hours (i.e. 5 days on earth), a Muslim on earth will pray for 5 * 5 i.e. 25 times. In your opinion, how many times should the Muslims of first (small) planet and last (large) planet pray during that same amount of time?

I could think of choosing from one of the below two possibilities.

1) Follow 5 times a day prayer cycle no matter how long is the planet's own day/night cycle time is compared to earth. In this case, in small planet, Muslims will still continue to pray 5 times a day and hence in earth standard 120 hours, Muslims will pray 5 * 5 * 5 = 125 times while on earth during that same time a Muslim will pray 5 * 5 = 25 times and in the large planet a Muslim will pray 5 times only in that same amount of time.

2) Follow earth's standard time to decide how many times you pray in other planets. In this case, all of small planet, large planet and earth the prayer will be performed exactly the same number of times i.e. 5 * 5 = 25 times in 120 hours earth standard time (which is equivalent to 1 day in large planet but 25 days in small planet). However, it will end up being that in the small planet a Muslim will pray only once a day (day of that small planet) while in the large planet Muslims will end up praying 25 times a day (day of that large planet).

What would you think as the more reasonable option be? #1 or #2? Or would you rather think of a different option other than these 2?

JAK

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