Dawah in the 21st century: Qur'an as Graphic Art
While the traditional Islamic arts have been experiencing a revival of late, some artists have been turning to more modern media to communicate their faith. Erfian Asafat is a young Indonesian who applies his talent as an artist to depicting the Qur'an as a graphic illustration - otherwise known as a comic. Erfian talked with LastProphet.info about how 21st century media led to his spritual reaw...

The Love of Prophet Muhammad in Ottoman Society
According to a widely-held belief by researchers - one which even Western Orientalists voice from time to time - the Ottoman dynasty was the dynasty most respectful to Islam. Professor of Ottoman history Dr. Mehmet İpşirli answered some of our questions on the topic of "Ottomans and the love of prophets." İpşirli shared some interesting historical events relating to the issue along...

To Remember Prophet Muhammad: "Why Does the Prophet Matter?"
Interview with Omid Safi One of the things that was important to me was that as contemporary Muslims we should be able to take a look at what our past has been and be able to say that we have had some Muslims who have preferred not to have any images and we have had some Muslims who have preferred to have images with the face. Muslims are having hard times today in explaining themselves to the w...

Omar Qureshi at Rihla
Omar Qureishi  -- taught Shafi’i fiqh and aqeedah classes at Rihla 2013, lives in Chicago.  On the Blessings of Sirah and Hadith Studies Studying the Sirah is incredibly important because living in the modern world, in the West where all types of narratives and stories are put into question, human beings are living in communities where there is no narrative at all. They’re not able to make sense ...

Imam Afroz Ali at the Rihla 2013
Imam Afroz Ali is the managing director for Seeker’s Hub Global, which is a partnership between Seeker’s Hub of Toronto, Canada (under the leadership of Shaykh Faraz Rabbani) and al-Ghazali Centre based in Sydney, Australia. Sirah and Hadith The lifestory of the Prophet is incredibly important, and is the basis on which we should understand our own lives. Today, this is a dying science – Sirah ha...

Humza Maqbul Chaudhry at Rihla 2013
Humza Chaudhry was born in Whittier, California. He pursued a program of traditional Islamic studies. His educational tour took him to several countries, including Syria and Egypt, where he studied the Arabic language; Morocco, Mauritania, and UAE, where he studied the ethical and legal school (madhhab) of Imam Malik, grammar, transmissional criticism (usul al-hadith), and the Qur'anic recitation...

Imam Jamal Zahabi at Rihla 2013
While in Konya for the Rihla 2013, your LastProphet editor met with several scholars and interviewed them.  First in a series of transcripted interviews is one with Imam Jamal Zahabi, a scholar who was born in Lebanon and currently lives in Canada, who taught a course on Innovation in Islamic Law: On the Study of Sirah and Hadith Definitely, overall, as Muslims we are lacking our teachings a gre...

Abdul-Hakim Murad at Rihla
LastProphet continues this series of transcripts of interviews with scholars who taught in Konya during Rihla 2013. Ustadh (an Arabic respectful term for teacher) abdul-Hakim Murad needs little introduction - Professor T.J. Winters, better known as abdul-Hakim Murad, teaches Islamic studies at Cambridge University, and studied both at al-Azhar and with traditional scholars from the Yemen while li...

Forty Prophetic Sayings in Forty Cartoons: Islam and Humor
This week our guest is a skilled artist, whose drawings not only make us laugh, but also cause us to stop and think. He has managed to go beyond the boundaries of the drawing, showing us the gravity of the Day of Judgment. With the weight of the world on his soldiers, he is hardworking, a veteran traveler on the road to the cities of Heaven. On this journey he carries drawings of 40 hadith in his...

Questions and Answers from Director Majid Majidi
World renowned director Majid Majidi was part of LastProphet.info Web Portal’s 2013 Seerah Workshop, which was organized under the theme of “Seerah and Visuality.” During the question and answer period of the workshop, Majidi spoke about his artistic life and his new film on the life of the Messenger of Allah (p.b.u.h.) Q: Can you speak about your journey in starting off the project of your film...

What non-Muslims know about the Prophet Muhammad
  Lastprophet.info asked members of different faith traditions living in Turkey about their views, knowledge and feelings about the Prophet Muhammad, with some interesting results. Here are their responses… [flvplayer videoUrl="http://www.lastprophet.info/files/1630-what_non_muslims_know_about_the_prophet_muhammad_Lastprophet_info.flv" previewImageUrl="http://www.lastpr...

Seyyed Hossein Nasr on Modernity, Practice of Faith & Spirituali
  As for modernism, modernism is now exploding from within; it’s breaking up in a paradigm which governs over modernity, which we call modernism. Host: Given the conditions of the contemporary world, is Islam evolving or transforming in such a way that it may adapt to modernity, or is modernity evolving into something that is more accepting of religion? Nasr: Well I don&rsq...