Thursday 29 October 2015

How to be happy?

What brings us real happiness?
Can we be happier if we have more money?
Can fame bring us happiness?
Does true happiness lie in fulfilling our desires?
If not, what is it?

Our new booklet discusses where happiness actually lies and where it doesn't and provides practical workable solution to live a happy life leaving behind our worries and sadness.

Read and Share.

Book: Read / Download
Audio (Khutbah): Download


Sunday 25 October 2015

How to add facebook feed to your website

Assalam o Alaikum Everyone,

We have updated our facebook feed outlook and feel on our website and on this blog.
To view activity feed on facebook, click the link below:


If you are interested in building your own website and want to understand how it works, read on..

_____________


We can embed facebook posts/ feed on websites through embed tools.

Embed tools are available from facebook developers forum as well as other external developers. Facebook's own tools are free. External ones are a mix of free and paid ones. Free ones usually come with branding.


We were initially using POWe embed tool which worked fine initially and had a good impressive layout. 
However, recently, without any trigger or notice, it switched to feed for another facebook page. I found this with a great surprise.

I have accordingly now moved to embed through www.feederninja.com.
It is a free tool.. and is beautiful indeed.

Facebook developers tool is also free but look pretty old style with maximum container width fixed to 500 (even if you right 5000 as width in your code :)  ).

Therefore, feeder ninja is my choice.

The process to use this for your feed is really simple.

- You are required to have your own facebook page (you will need its URL to generate feed)
- Go to www.feederninja.com website and click 'generate':


- Some social media icons will appear on your screen.
- Select facebook and enter URL for your page
- You can customize your feed.
- Before you can generate an HTML code, you will be required to create login
- Create login and verify
- You can now get HTML code for your feed. Don't forget that you can still edit it (and change the height of feed container if you like.. 1000 or 1500 px may be suitable)
- Go to your website builder (weebly, blogger.com, wordpress etc.) and embed HTML through embed options available.

Here you go.
It is a beautiful feed with only a little diagonal strip at lower right corner mentioning that it is from feeder ninja.

The layout is so beautiful that you would naturally love to share it with others as I am doing now.

Don't forget to visit Australian Islamic Library.
Happy reading.

Kind Regards,
Nabeel

Sunday 18 October 2015

New Tafsir books added

We have proudly added following tafsir books on library's tafsir bookshelf.
Read and remember us in prayers.



Tafsir Al-Mayasser is written by a group of comporary scholars in a way that it can be used by common reader.
Audio explanation in Malay is also available.


Badai'i At-Tafsir is a collection of explanations of Quran from Ibn Al-Qayyim Al-Jouziyah from his 32 books.


Jazakallah,

Removal of broken links

Hello all,

For websites who choose to store their files on major archiving systems such as archive.org, slideshare.net etc. and present links on their website for seemless downloading, one commonly faced problem is broken links which often cause inconvenience to visitors.

How are broken links formed?

Broken links can be formed due to some of the following common issues:

- Website that you made the link to:

  •  is no more registered
  • has removed the file you linked to
  • has re-organized and moved things around

- Server (e.g. archive.org) has done a restructuring and now uses a different referencing method
- You linked to a file uploaded by another user who decided to take that file offline

How to fix this issue:
We have used a very useful award-winning tool recently. It identified 81 broken links out of our thousands of links to various servers.

Tool can be found at http://www.brokenlinkcheck.com unless they have gone out of service or have renamed or reorganized by the time you are reading this post. :)

It identifies broken links very efficiently and also highlights type of error linked to those links (e.g. 404 - page not found etc.).

I really liked the tool and thought it may be worthwhile to share with others.

Happy Reading and website building!

Sunday 11 October 2015

WHAT LANGUAGES TO INCLUDE IN CURRICULUM FOR MUSLIM CHILDREN

Our new article has been published in Australian Journal for Humanities and Islamic Studies Research.

Abstract:
Languages are tools that connect people globally and help them acquire knowledge. It is a highly critical decision to choose a language or a set of languages for inclusion in curriculum in a manner that would be most productive at personal, community and national level. What we need to see in our next generation has to be ‘sowed the seeds for’ today. Our study present an overview of choices related to languages inclusion in curriculum for Muslim children from the perspective of acquiring local languages, Arabic, English and other international languages.  Findings suggest that learning this set comprising of 4 languages is already practiced in different cultures and institutions. However selection of languages to be included in mix needs be carefully considered. Paper also highlights factors that govern influence of a particular language globally or for communities and recommend a set of languages that can be adopted for curriculum with further research.

Read Full Article Here.

Schooling Options for Muslim Children Living in Muslim Minority Countries

Our new paper has been published in International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research.

Abstract:
Islamic education of children is a common problem faced by Muslims living in western, European and other developed countries as minority. It can be due to a number of factors such as unavailability of Islamic schools at a particular location, lack of enough number of students to warrant opening a full-fledged Islamic school, curriculum legislated by governments which does not focus on Islamic education or does that in an inadequate manner (non-confessional or based on another faith), lack of integration between religious education and secular subjects, inability of parents to fund their child’s education in Islamic school due to high tuition fees, perception that state or secular public schools would provide better education than Islamic schools etc. Purpose of this paper is to examine the schooling choices available to Muslim parents living in Muslim-minority countries and factors that govern parents’ selection. This examination not only covers full-time schools but also the supplementary options (Sunday, Evening or Weekend schools). Sunday school concept is a centuries old concept which initiated to provide religious and literary education to children in England and gradually expanded to other parts of world. Muslim communities are also gradually embracing this concept but its development in most places is in infancy. In our analysis, we have reviewed a large body of knowledge and research on Islamic school and presented our synthesized findings with regards to functioning, applicability, sustainability, curriculum and other relevant aspects at Islamic schools in Muslim-minority countries.

Read full article here

CALL FOR PAPERS/ THESIS SUBMISSION

CALL FOR PAPERS/ THESIS SUBMISSION:

Australian Journal of Humanities and Islamic Studies Research
(Registration application with National Library Australia is in process)


Many students put extreme hard-work and effort in writing their thesis and dissertations.
However, ultimate fate of those laboriously written documents is to sit on some shelves and never getting read again. And those that get published often sit behind payment walls with restricted access to general public.

With AJHISR, you not only have an opportunity to publish in a peer-reviewed international journal, but also to gain due recognition for your hard work.

We accept research papers/ book reviews/ articles/ thesis on a wide range of subjects related to humanities and Islamic studies research through-out the year. There are no charges or fees associated with Islamic Studies research. Modest fee of $25 is charged as administrative fee for publishing all other research work.

We also offer qualification pathways for our researchers who now have an opportunity to get a certificate or Diploma based on their research experience and quality of submissions.
Inquire today.

Journal is run and managed by Australian Islamic Library.
Publishing Time: 48 hours after acceptance (Peer-reviewed)


Volunteer editors/ reviews can express their interest by submitting CV through our website.
VISIT JOURNAL HOME PAGE


With Best Wishes,
Australian Islamic Library 

Monday 28 September 2015

Islamic Education in Europe

My new book "Islamic Education in Europe - A Comprehensive Analysis" is now available for free download.

It covers policy overview, current situation and trends regarding educational options available to Muslim parents. This information can be particularly useful for Muslim parents and organizations seeking to establish Islamic Education institutions.




Stay tuned for my other upcoming work focusing on parents' choice in terms of schooling based on social, psychological and availability perspectives.

Religious Education in Japanese Schools

(An excerpt from my upcoming research paper: "Schooling Options for Muslim Children Living In Muslim-Minority Countries – A Thematic Literature Review")

LEGAL PERSPECTIVE:

According to Japanese law:

“The State and its organs shall refrain from religious education or any other religious activity” (Takeda, 1968) and accordingly religious education is not encouraged in Japan.

In subsequent years after the rollout of this law, notifications from government’s education department has clarified that this restriction was regarding sectarian education and general religious sentiment was considered acceptable (Inoue, 2009).

Research shows that general awareness of religion is receiving increased acceptance in light of some recent events (Inoue, 2009; Sugihara, 1998).

“In private schools, according to Article 24 of the School Law, it is possible to teach religion in place of ethics and the teacher’s license is issued specifically to allow for such a teaching”(Inoue, 2009; Sugihara, 1998).

Important point to note is that according to section 20 of Japanese constitution, “No religious organization shall receive any privileges from the State, nor exercise any political authority” (Inoue, 2009).

Therefore, funding is not available for private schools in Japan.

COST OF SCHOOLING:

Cost of sending children to public schools in considerably lesser than private schools (Maisie, 2014).

SCHOOLING OF MUSLIM CHILDREN:

In Japan most Muslim children go to public schools and parents are not satisfied about this as their children are not able to practice their religion (Ito, 2012).

One of reasons for this is unavailability of ANY Islamic school in Japan. “There is not a single Muslim elementary or junior high school in Japan” (YILDIRIM, 2015).

This is also confirmed from a question posed by a Muslim parent on an Islamic website asking for an educational option for his children in the absence of any Islamic schools in Japan (“Japanese Muslims seeking Islamic education for children,” 2002).

Parents accordingly demand for establishment of Islamic schools, as identified in surveys.

SUPPLEMENTARY RELIGIOUS EDUCATION:

Recent researches suggest the same finding and mention that Islamic education for children in Japan mainly relies on informal means and volunteer efforts (Ishikawa, 2015; Ito, 2012).

Such volunteer programs also include Sunday schools in mosques (ICJ, 2013).