Advertising

Part Of The Game

2008-11-11T03:40:00.000-08:00

Weekend is a special time for those of people. They wait the coming of weekend, for come together with their family, after busy with self activity. They was manage this time with carefulness, selfishly about refreshing is very important they are looking for place, which at your services, such as recreation on the beach, climbing the mountain, and those of people there are join with part of the game.

For those people they are chosen to live in home. They are can enjoy weekend with see the fun of live, football funnies and soon only access on part of the game. They are the name of the web – TV channels which launched by Carlsberg Brewey vouchsafing what do you want. They are 5 channels everything about football funnies and fun of life. So you can access on part of the game now. Cost effective, safe your time and despitefully comfortable, because you can look it with your family in family room.

Xobni Launches Public Beta

2008-05-05T02:26:00.000-07:00

Xobni, the startup that brings the social network to your inbox, has just announced the launch of their public beta, which begins today. We covered Xobni back in January, calling the software "ingenious" because of its ability to tap into the biggest, yet often hidden, social network that everyone utilizes - email.

The software currently only works with Outlook where it runs in a sidebar, analyzing and extracting info about you, your relationships, and your communication habits.

Xobni initially launched in September 2007 at the TechCrunch40 Conference. After being downloaded thousands of times in the hours after launch, they closed the doors and went into a private beta period. During this time, they kept the number of beta testers low while focusing on refining Xobni's features and responding to user feedback. Some of these adjustments were documented on the company's blog, like the removal of the "organize" tab from Xobni's UI, which was decided to be too much of a distraction to the core product.

Back in January, we noted that their blog had hinted at expanding beyond Outlook to other platforms, but, besides a clever April Fool's Day prank where they announced support for Pine email, no additional news regarding future supported platforms has been announced. While this leaves many email users in the cold, for those who work in the corporate world - where Outlook is still heavily used - Xobni's public beta will be of great help, allowing them to quickly find and expose the data trapped in their inbox.

Do Not Track Legislation Could Change the Ad Landscape

2008-05-05T02:22:00.001-07:00

Recently an expert tried to explain Do Not Call (lists of people who do not wish to receive calls from telemarketers), to telemarketing vendors. He waved two big tomes and explained that telemarketers need to adhere to the rules in both, or risk fines. Unfortunately the two tomes, from different regulators, were contradictory.

Even worse, the regulations varied from state to state. So he suggested one simple take-away “never, ever call anybody in Nebraska, you will certainly get nailed”. And that was just explaining the situation in America, this expert did not even attempt to explain the complexities of calling globally.

This was a bomb that landed on the consumer telemarketing industry. A similar bomb called Do Not Track may be about to land on the online advertising industry. This article in the New York Times describes an initiative in New York which follows a bill introduced in Connecticut. Europe is already a stickler for privacy and never misses a chance to slow the growth of the big US based global players.

Back in October I suggested that privacy was going to become a bigger issue and that some high profile event would “spook and offend enough people to set the Blogosphere on fire. Then MSM will pick up on the story and then politicians and regulators will jump on board.”

The high profile event was Facebook Beacon. The next “100 years of advertising” as proclaimed by Mark Zuckerberg looked a lot like an Amway scheme to ordinary folk. This was not just big companies abusing your privacy to sell you stuff, it was big companies enlisting your friends to abuse your privacy and sell you stuff.

There are a lot of mixed feelings about privacy in the Blogosphere. Most of us depend on advertising to pay the bills. We are totally public, blogging and twittering away about everything we think and do. To many of us, it is time to “get over it”, the toothpaste is out of the tube, privacy is dead. At another extreme are the purists, the idealists who don’t need ads to pay the bills (having tenure at a major college takes away that pressure for example). In the middle are a lot of people who know that something is badly broken in the online ad world and something new will come.

The problem is, nobody has the foggiest idea what new ad model will work. That is not for lack of trying. There are lots of incredibly smart people trying to figure this out.

The reason that Do Not Call was such a big deal was that Spam had already killed email marketing. If you want to do push marketing, junk mail is the only intrusive form left. Now that is sad. You really want to kill more trees to avoid getting calls or emails? No, I did not think so. Stop Junk Mail is now a business as well.

Push and pull marketing are the two sides of the direct response industry. With push marketing almost dead, Google re-invented pull marketing with search-driven CPC and the rest, as they say, is history.

SEM is phenomenally powerful in the right hands, but leaves a lot to be desired:

1. The auction model drives prices to a level that is eventually unsustainable for the advertiser.
2. It is not good for branding. So its not that good for the big consumer brand budgets. It works best for a product/service that is low enough to be in the impulse purchase price range but high enough to pay for Adwords. About $100 is ideal.
3. It is open to click fraud.
4. You need a high level of sophistication to use SEM effectively. You need a machine that converts clicks to dollars (ok, Euros would be better) with total consistency, so you can buy Adwords with precision. Together with 1, this makes it out of reach for most small businesses.

So, SEM is great for savvy start-ups with $100 products to sell, but not the mainstream of a) big consumer brands and b) small business? That leaves a lot of money looking for an alternative. The gap between ad $ spend and online usage is so wide, but rather than getting narrower it looks like it is getting wider. This means that the guys with the ad budgets are holding back because they don’t know where to spend.

All successful new ad models have two things in common:

1. Something new that is dramatically better than current alternatives. Advertisers are conservative, so a new model has to show enormous potential to pry open the budget.
2. Standardization. This has been true of anything from the 30 second slot to banner ad size. Advertisers have to know what they can buy and they have to justify their budget in traditional terms.

The big problem is that 1 and 2 conflict. Lets say you are a start-up with a revolutionary new service that attracts a great “audience”. You would be smart to be totally conservative with your ad model (standard CPM and/or CPC). You cannot change the ad industry on your own. On the other hand, if you are a big media company with long established relationships with the big advertisers and their agencies, you also have no motivation to change the CPM status quo.

Google really was in a unique situation. They had a better search engine but CPM was clearly utterly useless as a monetization strategy. And paid search with an auction model fitted perfectly - thanks a ton, Overture!

That combination is unusual. Most of the new web 2.0 services can use CPM to monetize. As Web 2.o ventures don’t pay much for content creation and can get viral adoption, that drives down CPM prices. That’s OK for low cost Web 2.0 ventures even if it leaves a lot of money on the table that could be collected with smarter models. It’s a disaster for traditional media with a higher cost base, but they don’t tend to be the drivers for innovation. So the motivation to innovate is less.

CPM feels like an old media model grafted onto the online world, like talking heads in the early days of TV. CPM is “faith based advertising” that does not move any further to answer Sam Wanamaker’s famous implied question “which 50% of my budget is wasted?”

CPM survived in an HTML page centric world that mimicked print. In a world with AJAX, rich applications, APIs, mashups, aggregators, mobile and social networks the question marks related to CPM just keep piling up.

Frogs don’t jump out of water that gradually comes to a boil. If you throw some boiling water in they jump out quickly. The politicians maybe about to throw in that boiling water. Do Not Track legislation matters because Behavioral Targeting is currently the best game in town for big budget consumer branding. It is mature, works and all the big Ad Networks have a variant. And Do Not Track will be about as much fun for Behavioral Targeting as Do Not Call is for telemarketing vendors.

Predicting politics is not my game, I find it utterly mysterious. However I think that some variant of Do Not Track legislation is inevitable for two reasons:

1. Ordinary people value privacy (they don’t Blog or Twitter) and nobody has articulated a big win for them to give up privacy. The telemarketing and email vendors tried “but they will miss all these great promotions that my clients are selling” and that did not wash.
2. The industry is not united. There are people such as Doc Searls and his Vendor Relationship Management saying that total re-invention of the ad model is well overdue. That is to be expected. This quote from the NY Times article was more surprising. “Mr. Brodsky ( Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, the sponsor of a New York bill to limit how companies collect data on computer users) says he has asked the Web companies point-blank if they would support legislation similar to what he has proposed. Microsoft gave him a firm “yes,”

The reason I keep coming back to Vendor Relationship Management (VRM), even though it is clearly very early stages in the thinking, no real deployable system or even prototype yet, is that it is the only genuinely radical approach that resonates with me as an ordinary user and as a business person. At its most fundamental, VRM echoes Oscar Wilde:

“Give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth”

In other words, if privacy is absolutely completely guaranteed, buyers will reveal all their intentions. You don’t have to infer their intentions from a search term or from the last 10 sites they visited. They will explicitely tell you, the seller, what they want. Sam Wanamaker could finally say “my ad $$$ are not wasted”.

The people working on VRM recently came up with the concept of the “reverse cookie”. It is perfectly timed for a Do Not Track world. No point in Googling “reverse cookie”, you will get something about Oreos! You the buyer set out what you want and your cookie tracks which sellers have what might fit. It sounds a bit like an agent.

VRM is radical. The more mainstream approaches seem to bifurcate into two:

1. The direct response world moves from CPC to CPA (Cost Per Action) to the logical end game of direct revenue share, transaction fees, Cost Per Revenue or whatever we end up calling it. That brings in mainstream small business by making the proposition totally simple - your product costs $100, we will take $25 on every sale, no sale = no fee” and obviously cuts out click fraud. This is a perfect “recession story“.
2. The brand advertising world moves to greater levels of creativity to get engagement when they can no longer rely on thrusting their message on a consumer. We are still way, way early in this game but I suspect it may make advertising, media and marketing the wild, fun place to be it was in the 1960s when TV went mainstream.

Do Not Track Legislation Could Change the Ad Landscape

2008-05-05T02:22:00.000-07:00

Social Networking Profiles as Billboards with SocialVibe

2008-05-05T02:21:00.000-07:00

SocialVibe is an online popularity contest that turns corporate advertising into money for charity. Users compete for status and prizes by shilling for their favorite brands, while a cut of the proceeds goes to a charity of their choice. The more popular you are on social networks or elsewhere on the web (for example, if you author a popular blog) the more money you can raise for charity and the more chances you can earn to win prizes.

SocialVibe, whose parent company West Hollywood, CA-based Archetype Media raise $4.12 million from Redpoint Ventures in February, offers users a flash-based widget that they can embed anywhere that accepts flash widgets. Specifically, the company encourages users to embed them on Facebook and MySpace. The widget displays brand advertising (for brands like Coca-Cola, Nike, Sprint, or E*Trade) via logo art designed with the social networking set in mind or flash video.

In exchange for displaying the ads on their social networking profiles, users are rewarded with points. The more views or the longer an advertising badge stays up on a site, the more points users earn. Some sponsors also offer prizes for anyone who displays their ad widget. While users are earning points and prize drawing entries, a charity of their choice is earning cash. It sounds like a good deal for everyone involved, and it seems to be working pretty well -- most charities on the site have raised at least a couple of thousand dollars, and will continue to be able to do so as long as SocialVibe can demonstrate a good ROI for advertisers.

OpenX vs Google Ad Manager

2008-05-05T02:20:00.000-07:00

Recently on ReadWriteTalk, we interviewed Scott Switzer, the CTO and Founder of OpenX. Until recently they were known as OpenAds, but they've since rebranded as OpenX. Shortly after the interview was recorded, Google announced a competitive product called AdManager. Scott responded on the OpenX blog by saying that "Google’s announcement of a free ad server, Ad Manager, validates our marketplace". But he also cautioned: "as a publisher, I would find this a dangerous cocktail and I would worry that it may marginalize my revenue."

I agree that publishers who let Google serve all of their advertisements via AdManager, even the non-Google AdSense ads, are taking a big risk. This was already a risk with Google's Acquisition of Double Click, even before Google's announcement of Ad Manager. See our post last year, Google's Potential Vulnerability: An Open Ad Network, for more on this topic.

If you agree that a viable alternative is important to the marketplace, an interesting question is: what will OpenX's business model ultimately be? We'll focus on this question for the rest of this post.
OpenX Business Model

In our ReadWriteTalk interview, Scott mentioned two high-level revenue streams they think about regularly at OpenX:

* Providing Paid Customer Support
* Helping Publisher's Maximize their Ad Revenue

While it seems that customer support is a pretty obvious revenue stream for most open source projects, the 'maximising revenue' idea gives some interesting indications of the future business model for OpenX. Specifically, Scott highlighted three methods:

"I think that the next thing that we think about in terms of the business model is finding the best way for publishers to monetize their site ... we can help them by trying to build efficiency inside the advertising marketplace, which isn’t very efficient today. And that manifests itself in a couple of different ways.

One by getting our publishers better rates for ad networks than they could by themselves.

Another could be for our publishers to be able to take direct ads and build a workflow, so that advertising can be purchased directly from them without having to go through multiple emails and a IO process and payment process and that type of thing.

And another could be for ad networks to be able to take particular parts of inventory packaged up by publishers in a way that’s attractive for advertisers, ad networks. Those are three very specific things that we’re looking at."

Conclusion: Ultimately an Ad Exchange

This line of questioning started with me asking Scott if OpenX ultimately will become an ad exchange. While he wouldn't confirm this, when OpenX talks about "build[ing] efficiency inside the advertising marketplace" it leads me to believe that they will ultimately become an ad network. Scott did point out that they are also trying to be open and integrate with a lot of the traditional networks, such as Right Media - which is certainly a point of differentiation.

While I understand that perspective, according to Scott OpenX is "serv[ing] in the hundreds of billions of ads per month." This is in the same neighborhood as Double Click. And with the recent announcement that OpenX is launching a hosted solution (ultimately giving them even more visibility and becoming closer to publishers) an ad exchange seems inevitable at some point. In the meantime, we'll be testing the hosted ad server on ReadWriteTalk and may eventually use it on ReadWriteWeb as well.

What do you think OpenX will ultimately become? An ad exchange, or do you see another obvious business model? Also, what are your thoughts on Google launching AdManager - is it a threat to publishers?

Dawah - An Obligation

2007-11-03T02:29:00.000-07:00

An important matter for Muslims to realize is that Dawah is an obligation upon them. Allah (subhanahu wa Ta`ala) says in the Quran:

"Invite to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided." (Quran, an-Nahl: 125)

"Let there arise out of you a group of people inviting to all that is good, enjoining al-ma`roof (i.e. Islamic Monotheism and all that Islam orders one to do) and forbidding al-Munkar (polytheism and disbelief and all that Islam has forbidden). And it is they who are successful." (Quran, Aal Imraan: 104)

The second verse may seem to be restricting the general obligation given in the first verse, but a close look at the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) reveals that calling to Allah is an individual obligation, rather than a collective one. The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) has said: "Convey from me, even one verse." (Bukhari) Conveying the message therefore does not require a high level of scholarship, it is in fact a responsibility of each and every Muslim, according to his or her ability.

The obligation is further emphasized by the following verse which explains that not conveying the message - hiding knowledge - is disobedience to Allah that causes Allah's curse to descend upon such people, which shows that such a sin leads to the Hellfire.

"Verily, those who conceal the clear proofs, evidences and the guidance, which We have sent down, after We have made it clear for the people in the Book, they are the ones cursed by Allah and cursed by the cursers." (Quran, al-Baqarah: 159)

In the same connection, the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) has stated, "Whoever hides knowledge, Allah will brand him with the branding iron from the hellfire." (Ahmad)

Calling people to Allah also means completing our own worship, the reason for which we are created. It is one of the noblest acts that entails a high reward.

"And who is better in speech than he who (says: 'My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness),' and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and) invites (men) to Allah (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: 'I am one of the Muslims.'" (Quran, Fussilat: 33)

With regards to the reward, the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) has said: "Whoever guides (another) to a good deed will get a reward similar to the one who performs it." (Sahih Muslim) Also, "By Allah, if Allah were to guide one man through you it would be better for you than the best type of camels." (Bukhari, Muslim)

By: Abu Abdel Kareem
Source: www.islaam.com

Who is the Creator?

2007-11-03T02:28:00.000-07:00

Can It Be Matter?

A very popular question among atheists is, ‘Granted that the existence of temporal things necessitates the existence of an eternal cause, why should that cause be the God of religion? Why can’t matter be eternal and be therefore in no need of an eternal creator?’ I shall argue, on an Islamic basis but at the same time also on a rational basis, that the attribute of eternity entails other attributes, which matter does not and cannot have, and cannot, in view of this, play the role of the original and ultimate cause of temporal things. Muslim theologians say that eternity of existence logically implies everlastingness. This is true because, if something is eternal then it does not depend for its existence on anything outside itself. If this is so then it can never pass away, because only those things pass away that lose some of the external conditions on which they depend for their existence. If the ultimate cause of temporal things is eternal and everlasting, it must of necessity be self-sufficient, qayyoom and ghanee.

Can there be more than one such creator? The Quran tells us that this is impossible;
“God never had a child, nor have there been any gods beside him. (Had there been any), each of them would have appropriated to himself what he created, and some would have overcome others.”

This Quranic argument was paraphrased by some Muslim theologians in a way somewhat like the following: The assumption that there are gods beside the one true God leads to false consequences and must therefore be false. If there is more than one god, then (a) if every detail of everything in the world was the result of the action of one of the gods, it cannot at the same time be the result of the action of another god. But if (b) some things in the world were created by some gods, and others by other gods, then each god would rule independently over what he created, which means that nothing in his world can even in principle, be influenced by anything outside it. But this contradicts the observed unity and interdependence of the world. And if that is impossible, then (c) some gods will overcome others, but if that happens then the ones who are vanquished cannot be true gods. There can, therefore, be no more than one creator.

How does this creator create? Since He is self-sufficient, He cannot be said to depend on anything outside Himself in any actions, and cannot therefore be said to produce His effects the way natural causes do. But if He is not a natural cause, He must be a volitional agent. And since intention implies knowledge, and knowledge and intention imply life, he must be a living being. Since He is an eternal and everlasting being, all His attributes must reflect this quality; thus He must be not only knowing, but all-knowing, not only powerful, but all-powerful, etc.

Since no matter in any form can answer to these attributes, and since all these attributes are implied by the two attributes of eternity and everlastingness, no form of matter can be either eternal or everlasting, and thus no matter of any form can play the role of that ultimate cause. This much of the attributes that an eternal and everlasting creator must have is enough, I suppose, to show that it cannot be matter.

But this conclusion can be further confirmed by what modern science tells us about the nature of matter.

Why Should He Be The God of Islam?

Some might say, ‘Granted that this god is a personal and living God, and that He has the attributes which you mentioned, why should He be the God of Islam and not, say the Christian or Jewish God?’ The God of Islam is the God of all true prophets of God from Adam down to Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. But it is a basic claim of the religion with which Muhammad came that previous religions (including Christianity and Judaism) have not been kept in their pristine form which those prophets advocated, but have been tampered with and distorted. The only religion whose book has taken upon itself to be preserved from any such distortions is the religion of the last of God’s prophets, namely Muhammad (p.b.u.h.). This is not to say that everything in those religions is false or bad. No! There is much in them that is good and true; it is only those elements in them that contradict Islam which must be false or bad. But even if they were to be purged of everything that is not in consonance with Islam, they would still be less perfect than Islam is, especially in their conceptions of God, therefore unsuitable for being universal religions.

Having said this, let me give one example of a non-Islamic religious belief which the Quran considers to be a stupendous blasphemy against God, namely that He has children. At the time of the Prophet, some Arabs believed that the angels were the daughters of God, while some Christians believed that Jesus was the son of God, and some Jews believed that Ezra was the son of God. Just as the Quran gave arguments for the impossibility of there being any gods besides the one true God, it also gave elaborate arguments to show the impossibility of Him having a child, whether male or female. If the Creator is one and self-sufficient, then He is also unique, ahad, “Nothing is like Him.” But if so then, “He neither begets nor is He begotten.” “How can He have a child if He has no consort, and if He created everything?” The Quran is here saying that the claim that God has children contradicts the facts (acknowledged by those who make this claim) that He is the Creator of everything, that He is Self-sufficient, and that He has no spouse. Now if He is the creator of everything, this necessarily includes the one who is claimed to be His child. But if this is created by Him, it cannot be His child; it has to be one of His creations. One does not create one’s child; one begets it. If it is insisted that the child is actually begotten and not created by God, this will entail the following false consequences:

The begotten child must be of the same nature as its father, in which case God will not be unique or one.
God will not be the creator of everything.
God will have to have a spouse, who must of course be of the same nature as He is, otherwise they cannot beget anything.
But in that case the number of beings who are of the same nature as God will be raised to three.
If the child is begotten then it cannot be eternal, i.e. it cannot be of the same nature as the father.
It must therefore be temporal; but in that case it has to have a creator. But if the God who is its father cannot at the same time be its creator, then there must be its creator, then there must be another creator besides that God the father; but in that case, this other creator will be the one true creator because it was through his power that the first one was able to beget its son. This will raise the number of gods to four.

No wonder than that the Quran said about those who claimed that Allah has a child. “You have indeed come with something most monstrous, of which the skies almost burst, the earth split asunder, and the mountains fall down in utter ruin. All this because of their attributing a child to Allah."

By: Dr. Jaafar Shaikh Idris
Source: www.jaafaridris.com

Virtues of Thul-Hijjah

2007-11-03T02:27:00.001-07:00

If you are not amongst those, who by Allah's grace have been able to attend this great act of worship, then do not despair!!

The first ten days of the sacred month of Thul-Hijjah represent a great opportunity to invest in the way of good deeds.

Narrated Ibn Abbaas: The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) said: "No good deeds done on other days are superior to those done on the first ten days of Thul-Hijjah." Then some of the companions of the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) asked: 'not even Jihad?' he replied: "not even Jihad, except that of a man who does it by putting himself and his property in danger for Allah's sake and does not return with any of these things." (Bukhari)

Even, by just abstaining from cutting one's hair or clipping one's nails during these days, for the person who intends to sacrifice in Al Adha Eid, is an act of Sunnah and, Insha Allah, will be rewarded accordingly. May Allah help us to be amongst those who make the most of those blessed days? Being a pilgrim or otherwise. Ameen.

SUPERIORITY OF DOING GOOD DEEDS:
Every Muslim is recommended to exploit the superiority of these days by increasing his practice of good deeds, such as Nafl prayers, donations, reciting Quran, Dhikr (remembrance of Allah), fasting, etc. Islam emphasizes, particularly in these days, the following actions:

1. Performing Hajj and Umrah are the best deeds that can be done on those days. The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) said: "Al Hajj Al-Mabroor has no reward but Jannah." (Bukhari and Muslim)

2. Fasting the day of Arafah for those who are not in Hajj, as it expiates the sins of two years, the year that passed and the year that follows. As for the day of Arafah, where all the pilgrims gather in that very special place, "the Mount of Arafat", hoping that they might be amongst those who will be saved from the grueling punishment of Hellfire, The mother of the Faithful "Aisha (May Allah be pleased with her) reported that she heard the Messenger of Allah (p.b.u.h.) saying: "There is no day when Allah sets free more servants from hell than the day of Arafah."

Those who are not performing Hajj, can also share the blessings of this day through fasting: the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) said: "Observing the fast on the day of Arafah amends the sins (committed during the past year and the subsequent one." (Muslim)

3. The Takbeer (saying Allahu-Akbar). Ibn Omar and Abu Huraira (may Allah be pleased with them) used to go to the market saying Takbeer during the first ten days of Dhul-Hijjah and the people would say it after them. It is recommended to say Takbeer after daily congregational prayers starting from Fajr prayer of the day of Arafah (the 9th) to Asr prayer on the last day of Al Tashreeq (the 13th).

4. Attending the Eid prayer on the 10th day and then listening to the Khutbah (sermon).

5. Offering the sacrifice.

Source: www.islamweb.net

Good Character

2007-11-03T02:24:00.001-07:00

This includes suppressing one's anger, and being gentle and humble. Allah Most High has said: Surely, you are of tremendous nature, (The Holy Quran: 68/4) and: Those who suppress their anger, and forgive other people – assuredly, Allah loves those who do good. (Quran: 3/134)

Bukhari and Muslim relate that Abdullah Ibn Amr (May Allah be pleased with you) said, "The Messenger of Allah (p.b.u.h.) was never immoderate or obscene. He used to say, 'Among those who are most beloved to me are those who have the finest character.'"

They also narrate that Aisha (May Allah be pleased with her) said, "Never was the Messenger of Allah (p.b.u.h.) given the choice between two things without choosing the easier of them, as long as it entailed no sin. If it did entail sin, he was of all people the most remote from it. Never did he seek revenge for something done against himself; but when the sanctity of Allah was challenged, he would take vengeance for His sake alone."

The meaning of good character is the inclination of the soul towards gentle and praiseworthy acts. This may take place in one’s personal actions for Allah Most High, or in actions which involve other people. In the former case, the slave of Allah has an open and welcoming heart for His commandments and prohibitions, and does what He has imposed on him happily and easily, and abstains from the things which He has forbidden him with full contentment, and without the least dissatisfaction. He likes to perform optional good acts, and abstains from many permitted things for the sake of Allah Most High whenever he decides that to abstain in that way would be closer to perfect slavehood to Him. This he does with a contented heart, and without feeling any resentment or hardship. When he deals with other people, he is tolerant when claiming what is his right, and does not ask for anything which is not; but he discharges all the duties which he has towards others. When he falls ill or returns from a trip, and no-one visits him, or when he gives a greeting which is not returned, or when he is a guest but is not honored, or intercedes but is not responded to, or does a good turn for which he is not thanked, or joins a group of people who do not make room for him to sit, or speaks and is not listened to, or asks permission of a friend to enter, and is not granted it, or proposes to a woman, and is not allowed to marry her, or ask for more time to repay a debt, but is not given more time, or asks for it to be reduced, but is not permitted this, and all similar cases, he does not grow angry, or seek to punish people, or feel within himself that he has been snubbed, or ignored; neither does he try to retaliate with the same treatment when able to do so, but instead tells himself that he does not mind any of these things, and responds to each one of them with something which is better, and closer to goodness and piety, and is more praiseworthy and pleasing. He remembers to carry out his duties to others just as he remembers their duties towards himself, so that when one of his Muslim brethren falls ill he visits him, if he is asked to intercede, he does so, if he is asked for a respite in repaying a debt he agrees, and if someone needs assistance he gives it, and if someone asks for favorable terms in a sale, he consents, all without looking to see how the other person had dealt with him in the past, and to find out how other people behave. Instead, he makes "what is better" the imam of his soul, and obeys it completely.

Good character may be something which a man is born with, or it may be acquired. However, it may only be acquired from someone who has it more firmly rooted in his nature than his own. It is well known that a man of sensible opinion can become even more sensible by keeping the company of intelligent and sensible people, and that a learned or a righteous man can learn even more by sitting with other people of learning or righteousness; therefore it cannot be denied that a man of beautiful character may acquire an even more beautiful character by being with people whose characters are superior to his own.

And Allah gives success!

By: Imam Al-Bayhaqi
Source: www.islaam.com

Appearance of Dajjal

2007-11-03T02:21:00.000-07:00

Muslims' Victories Before the Dajjal's Appearance

Jabir bin Samurah narrated, "Nafi' bin 'Utbah said, 'We were accompanying the Messenger of Allah (p.b.u.h.) to a battle.' Then, he (Nafi') said, 'Then, some people from the west (of Madinah) came to the Prophet wearing clothes made of wool and they met him next to a mound. They were standing while the Messenger of Allah was sitting.' He (Nafi') then said, 'So I told myself, "Let me come closer to them and stand between them and him so that they will not assassinate him." He (Nafi') then said, '(Then, I said to myself) "They may be having a conversation with him." However, I came close by and stood between them and him.' He (Nafi') then said, 'And then I memorized four sentences from him, and I can count them with my hand. He said,

"You will invade the Arabian Peninsula and Allah will grant it (to you). Then (you will conquer) Persia and Allah will grant it (to you). Then, you will invade Ar-Rum and Allah will grant it (to you). Then, you will invade The Dajjal and Allah will grant him (to you)." Nafi' said to Jabir, "O Jabir! We do not believe that the Dajjal will appear until Ar-Rum is conquered." (Ibid., no. 2028)

The land of Ar-Rum is Europe and Rome is its heart. The Messenger of Allah gave us the good tidings that we will conquer Rome, the capital of Christendom today, after the Muslims conquered the first capital of Christendom, Constantinople.

Imam Ahmad narrated that Abdullah Bin Amr Bin Al-Aas said, "While we were around the Messenger of Allah) writing (the Hadith) the Messenger of Allah (p.b.u.h.) was asked/ 'Which of these two cities will be conquered first, Constantinople or Romiyah (Rome)?' He said, 'The city of Heracles will first be conquered.' He meant Constantinople.'' (Al-Hakim, Al-Mustadrak, vol. 4, p. 508. Also, see As-Silsilah as-Sahihah, vol. 1)

By: A.Hijazi
Source: www.islaam.com

One's Character

2007-11-03T02:20:00.001-07:00

Perfecting One's Character

The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) used to make a number of supplications related to good character.

"O Allah, guide me to good character, none guides to good character but You..." (Muslim)

"O Allah, I seek refuge in you from bad character, deeds and desires." (Tirmidhee)

"O Allah, You perfectly created me, so perfect my character." (Ahmad)

"O Allah, I seek refuge in you from disability and laziness; from cowardice and avarice; from decrepitude and harshness; from negligence and impoverishment, from lowness and humiliation. And I seek refuge in You from poverty and disbelief; from sinfulness, disunity and hypocrisy; from notability and Riya (showing off)..." (Ahmad, Maalik, Bazaar, Haithami and Ibn Abd al-Barr authenticated it)

The following beneficial excerpt is from "The Magnificent Journey" by Ibn ul Qayyim (published by QSS). It explains three conditions needed to acquire good manners, meaning proper nature, controlling one's Nafs and sound knowledge.

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Three Conditions to Acquire Excellent Manners

This is one example of the excellent manners with which Allah (Taala) has equipped his Messenger (p.b.u.h.). He described him as,

"Verily, You (Muhammad) are on an exalted standard on character." (68:4)

Aisha (May Allah be pleased with her) described him as, "His character was just (a reflection of) the Quran." (Muslim, Abu Dawood, Ahmad)

Such excellent character cannot be attained without three conditions:

1. The foundation must be good. If one has a rough and dry nature, it will be hard for him to submit to this (excellence of character) through knowledge, will, or practice. On the other hand, a mild and smooth nature will be ready and willing to receive the plowing and the seeds (to prepare it for character excellence).

2. The soul must be strong and capable of conquering calls of laziness, transgression, and desire. Those matters contradict perfection, and souls which cannot defeat them will always be defeated and conquered.

3. (One must possess) a discerning knowledge of the truth of matters, enabling one to put them in the rightful position, and to distinguish between flash and cancer - between glass and jewels.

If these three qualities are present in a man, and Allah's facilitation helps him, then he will be among those whom the best (Husnaa) has been decreed and for whom Allah's care has been secured.

By: Imam Ibn ul Qayyim al Jawziyyah
Source: islaam.com

Does Islam Allow Wife Beating?

2007-11-03T02:18:00.000-07:00

Respected scholars! Does Islam allow wife beating? Some husbands are violent and they say that the Quran allows them to beat their wives. Is there any logical explanation given regarding men being allowed to beat their wives, as stated in Surat An-Nisaa, verse 34?

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.

Dear questioner, we would like to thank you for the great confidence you placed in us, and we implore Allah Almighty to help us serve His cause and render our work for His Sake.

The verse you mentioned has been greatly misconceived by many people who focus merely on its surface meaning, taking it to allow wife beating. When the setting is not taken into account, it isolates the words in a way that distorts or falsifies the original meaning. Before dealing with the issue of wife-battering in the perspective of Islam, we should keep in mind that the original Arabic wording of the Holy Quran is the only authentic source of meaning. If one relies on the translation alone, one is likely to misunderstand it.

Commenting on this issue, Dr. Muzammil H. Siddiqi, former President of the Islamic Society of North America, states:

"According to Quran the relationship between the husband and wife should be based on mutual love and kindness. Allah says: "And among His Signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that ye may dwell in tranquility with them, and He has put love and mercy between your (hearts): verily in that are Signs for those who reflect." (Quran: Ar-Rum 21)

The Holy Quran urges husbands to treat their wives with kindness. (In the event of a family dispute, Quran exhorts the husband to treat his wife kindly and not to overlook her positive aspects). Allah Almighty says: “Live with them on a footing of kindness and equity. If ye take a dislike to them it may be that ye dislike a thing, and Allah brings about through it a great deal of good.” (Quran: An-Nisaa 19)

It is important that a wife recognizes the authority of her husband in the house. He is the head of the household, and she is supposed to listen to him. But the husband should also use his authority with respect and kindness towards his wife. If there arises any disagreement or dispute among them, then it should be resolved in a peaceful manner. Spouses should seek the counsel of their elders and other respectable family members and friends to batch up the rift and solve the differences.

However, in some cases a husband may use some light disciplinary action in order to correct the moral infraction of his wife, but this is only applicable in extreme cases and it should be resorted to if one is sure it would improve the situation. However, if there is a fear that it might worsen the relationship or may wreak havoc on him or the family, then he should avoid it completely.

Quran is very clear on this issue. Almighty Allah says: "Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more strength than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore, the righteous women are devoutly obedient and guard in the husband's absence what Allah would have them to guard. As to those women on whose part you fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means (of annoyance); for Allah is most High and Great (above you all). If you fear a breach between them twain, appoint (two) arbiters, one from his family and the other from hers. If they wish for peace, Allah will cause their reconciliation; for Allah has full knowledge and is acquainted with all things." (Quran: An-Nisaa 34-35)

It is important to read the section fully. One should not take part of the verse and use it to justify one's own misconduct. This verse neither permits violence nor condones it. It guides us to ways to handle delicate family situation with care and wisdom. The word "beating" is used in the verse, but it does not mean "physical abuse". The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) explained it "dharban ghayra mubarrih" which means "a light tap that leaves no mark". He further said that face must be avoided. Some other scholars are of the view that it is no more than a light touch by siwak, or toothbrush.

Generally, the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) used to discourage his followers from taking even this measure. He never hit any female, and he used to say that the best of men are those who do not hit their wives. In one Hadith he expressed his extreme repulsion from this behavior and said, "How does anyone of you beat his wife as he beats the stallion camel and then embrace (sleep with) her?” (Al-Bukhari, English Translation, vol. 8, Hadith 68, pp. 42-43)

It is also important to note that even this "light strike" mentioned in the verse is not to be used to correct some minor problem, but it is permissible to resort to only in a situation of some serious moral misconduct when admonishing the wife fails, and avoiding from sleeping with her would not help. If this disciplinary action can correct a situation and save the marriage, then one should use it."

Dr. Jamal Badawi, professor at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and a cross-appointed faculty member in the Departments of Religious Studies and Management, adds:

"If the problem relates to the wife's behavior, the husband may exhort her and appeal for reason. In most cases, this measure is likely to be sufficient. In cases where the problem persists, the husband may express his displeasure in another peaceful manner, by sleeping in a separate bed from hers. There are cases, however, in which a wife persists in bad habits and showing contempt of her husband and disregard for her marital obligations. Instead of divorce, the husband may resort to another measure that may save the marriage, at least in some cases. Such a measure is more accurately described as a gentle tap on the body, but never on the face, making it more of a symbolic measure than a punitive one.

Even here, that maximum measure is limited by the following:

a. It must be seen as a rare exception to the repeated exhortation of mutual respect, kindness and good treatment. Based on Quran and Hadith, this measure may be used in the cases of lewdness on the part of the wife or extreme refraction and rejection of the husband's reasonable requests on a consistent basis (nushuz). Even then, other measures, such as exhortation, should be tried first.

b. As defined by Hadith, it is not permissible to strike anyone's face, cause any bodily harm or even be harsh. What the Hadith qualifies as "dharban ghayra mubarrih", or light striking, was interpreted by early jurists as a (symbolic) use of siwak! They further qualified permissible "striking" as that which leaves no mark on the body.

c. The permissibility of such symbolic expression of the seriousness of continued refraction does not imply its desirability. In several Hadiths, the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) discouraged this measure. Here are some of his sayings in this regard:

"Do not beat the female servants of Allah";

"Some (women) visited my family complaining about their husbands (beating them). These (husbands) are not the best of you."

In another Hadith the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) is reported to have said: “How does anyone of you beat his wife as he beats the stallion camel and then he may embrace (sleep with) her?”

d. True following of the Sunnah is to follow the example of the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) who never resorted to that measure, regardless of the circumstances.

e. Islamic teachings are universal in nature. They respond to the needs and circumstances of diverse times, cultures and circumstances. Some measures may work in some cases and cultures or with certain persons but may not be effective in others. By definition, a "permissible" act is neither required, encouraged or forbidden. In fact it may be to spell out the extent of permissibility, such as in the issue at hand, rather than leaving it unrestricted or unqualified, or ignoring it all together. In the absence of strict qualifiers, persons may interpret the matter in their own way, which can lead to excesses and real abuse.

f. Any excess, cruelty, family violence, or abuse committed by any "Muslim" can never be traced, honestly, to any revelatory text (Quran or Hadith). Such excesses and violations are to be blamed on the person (s) himself, as it shows that they are paying lip service to Islamic teachings and injunctions and failing to follow the true Sunnah of the Prophet (p.b.u.h.)."

Allah Almighty knows best.

Source: www.muslimaccess.com

The Ruling on Celebrating the Prophet's Birthday

2007-11-03T02:16:00.000-07:00

Question: Is it permissible for Muslims to celebrate in the Masjid with dhikr and readings from the Seerah (Biography) of Prophet (r) on the night of the 12th of Rabee'-ul-Awwal, especially on the Prophet's birthday without making it a day of Eid? There is some differing between us as to whether it's Bid'ah Hasanah (good innovation) or not.

Answer: It's not from the way of Muslims to gather to celebrate the Prophet's birthday on the night of the 12th of Rabee'-ul-Awwal or any other night. Likewise, it is not from the way of Muslims to gather for any birthday celebration of any one, including the Prophet (p.b.u.h.). And this affair of celebrating and gathering for the birthday of the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) is an innovation and a newly introduced matter in the Religion. The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) never celebrated his birthday during his lifetime. And he was the one who communicated the Religion to us and legislated its legislation (for us) with Allaah's authority. This affair of celebrating the Prophet's birthday was not practiced by the rightly guided Khaleefahs or his Companions nor by those who preceded them in righteousness because they knew it was an innovation.

The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) said:

"He who innovates something in this affair of ours (i.e. Sunnah) that is not part of it, will have it rejected." (Bukhaari and Muslim)

And in another version of the Hadeeth:

"He who does an act which is not in agreement with our affair (i.e. religion), will have it rejected."

This celebrating of the Prophet's birthday is not from his practice but rather it is something that was introduced into the Religion by the later generations of Muslims and so it is to be rejected.

The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) would say in his Friday khutbah (sermon):

"To Proceed. Surely the best speech is the Book of Allaah and the best of all guidance is the guidance of Muhammad. And the worst of all affairs are newly invented things and every newly invented thing is an innovation and every innovation is astray." (Sahih Muslim)

It is also recorded by an-Nasa'i with a good chain of narration with the addition:

"...and every astray is in the Hellfire."

By: Shaikh Abdul Aziz Bin Baz
Source: islamhouse.com

Rights Due to Parents

2007-11-03T02:12:00.000-07:00

None can deny the parents' favor upon their children. The parents are the underlying reason for the existence of the child. They have reared him in his babyhood and experienced painstaking efforts to provide full comfort and sound well-being. Your mother had you in her womb while you were a parasite there sharing her food and whole being for nine months. In this context, Allah says:
"And We have enjoined on man (to be dutiful and good) to his parents. His mother bore him in weakness and hardship upon weakness and hardship..." (31:14)

It is a preliminary stage followed by incubation and breast feeding for two years marked by peculiar fatigue and hardships. The father, on his part, is meanwhile also fully engaged catering for his child and bringing him up, not sparing any sort of instructions or guidance he could provide his child with; the child, meanwhile, a helpless creature is neither harmful nor useful to himself.

Allah has always enjoined that children should be good and thankful to their parents and He says:
"And We have enjoined on man (to be dutiful and good) to his parents. His mother bore him in weakness and hardship upon weakness and hardship, and his weaning is in two years - give thanks to Me and to your parents, - unto Me is the final destination." (31:14)

"... And that you be dutiful to your parents. If one of them or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of disrespect, nor shout at them but address them in terms of honor. And lower unto them the wing of submission and humility through mercy, and say: "My Lord! Bestow on them Your Mercy as they did bring me up when I was small." (17:23, 24)

The right of parents upon you is to do good with them. You should be good to them physically as well as monetarily, and also with your words and your actions. You should be obedient to them unless in it there is disobedience to your Lord or there is some harm to you. Be kindhearted to them and serve them as they need your help. In their old age, in case of any ailment or weakness, never consider them a burden on you, neither speak to them harshly, because one day you will also become as old as they are. You will be a father as they are your parents and, if life permits, soon you will be an old man before your children just like your parents became old before you. So you need the help of your children as your parents need you today. If you are doing good to your parents then you must have the good news of a great reward and a better showing from your children, because whoever remained good to his parents, his children will also be good to him; and whoever annoyed his parents, will also be annoyed by his children. It is the process of recompense that deeds provide the results accordingly "as you sow, so will you reap. Allah has ranked the rights due to the parents high next only to His and the Prophet's, Allah says:
"Worship Allah and join none with Him in worship, and do good to parents..." (4:36)

And Allah also says:
"...give thanks to Me and to your parents... (31:14)

Being dutiful to one's parents assumes priority even over Jihad (fight in the cause of Allah) as is narrated in the tradition of Ibn Mas'ood when he asked the Prophet (p.b.u.h.):
"Which deed is most beloved by Allah?" He said, 'Observing prayer in time.' "And next to that?" He said: 'Being dutiful to one's parents.' "And next to that?" He answered: 'Jihad (fight in the cause of Allah).'"

This Hadith (Prophetic saying) reported by Bukhari and Muslim points directly to the significance of the rights due to one's parents.

Unfortunately, most people have forgotten these rights, instead disobedience and severance of ties have risen to harden the hearts, and even they contempt and detest their parents. Some people have even deemed themselves superior to those two old good creatures. A recompense is sure in store for those disobedient children, sooner or later.

Source: www.iad.org

Benefits of Becoming a Muslim

2007-11-03T02:10:00.001-07:00

1. As far as the Creator (whose proper name is Allah) is concerned, you will be able to identify Him and get to know Him, His role and your relationship to His names, you will be able to communicate with Him any time, 24 hours a day, throughout the whole year. As a result of this category, you will be able to know your origin, your roots and the wisdom as to why you are on this planet. You will be able to have good answers to the questions why, how, when, where, what and other philosophical questions.

2. As a result of the first benefit, your loyalty, allegiance, and obedience will be to the Creator himself. You will transcend yourself from all types of allegiance for this world. This means that if there is a conflict of interest between your boss, your job, your government, your system or any worldly relationship with the Creator, you will undoubtedly put your trust in Allah, the Creator of the universe. You will follow Him before you follow anyone else.

3. As a result of the second benefit, you will be able to acquire peace, harmony, tranquility and happiness within yourself, with your family, with people of the world, with the environment and with the universe. One has to remember that the source of peace is Allah, and one of his beautiful names is that He is The Peace.

4. As an endorsement to the third benefit, you will get rid of the extra electrostatic charges from your brain and the central nervous system by performing the daily Salah. Through Salah, you are to prostrate by putting your forehead to the floor; and as such are grounding yourself, and you are discharging these extra charges into the ground. As a result of this act, you will get rid of many of the neurological diseases from your body.

5. As a result of the fourth benefit, you will acquire a pleasant personality. You will be friendly and amicable. You would not need to drink alcohol, to use drugs or to get involved in vulgarity or immorality.

6. Through the experience of fasting in Islam, you will be able to have self-control, self-restraint, self-discipline, self-education, self-evaluation, and self-obedience to Allah the Creator. You undoubtedly will be able to improve health, personality, character, and behavior.

7. As a result of the sixth benefit, you will be able to control your lusts, selfishness, desires, greed, ego, and conceitedness.

8. Another side reaction of the sixth and seventh benefits is that you will be generous and hospitable; you will try to purify yourself and your mistakes by sharing your happiness and your wealth with those who are less fortunate than you. Your rewards will manifold, compounded daily until the Day of Judgment.

9. By performing pilgrimage to Makkah, you will transcend yourself from being nationalistic, sectarian, or denominational into being universal. You will be part and an essential constituent of the rainbow of Islam. You will be also part of the brotherhood of Islam with those who already submitted themselves to the Creator. At the same time, you will get rid of any inferiority or superiority complexes. You will also find yourself in synchrony and harmony with all the prophets and messengers of Allah since the creation of Adam and Eve until the last final messenger to mankind, prophet Muhammad (pbuh). While in Makkah, you will be able to visit the places of revelation of the Quran as well as the places visited by prophet Abraham and members of his family such as Hagar and Ishmael. You will visit the place where the first astronauts, Adam and Eve landed on earth.

10. In becoming a Muslim, you will do your best to stop all types of exploitations in all their forms: economic, biological, mental, spiritual, psychological, political, etc.. You will also work to liberate people and give them freedom of worship, freedom of speech, and freedom of expression. You will be a leader and help lead people to peace, tranquility and happiness.

11. In accepting Islam, you will help to reduce all types of social ills in the society: juvenile delinquency, child abuse, domestic abuse, incest, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, premarital relationships, extramarital relationships, and other vices.

12. As a result of the eleventh benefit, you will reduce and eliminate venereal diseases, AIDS, and other diseases of similar nature in the society.

13. Finally, when you die, you will die at peace. You will have a happy life in the grave and later, eternal happiness. Angels at the time of death will comfort you. They will also show you your place in paradise. On the Day of Judgment, you will be able to see and meet all the prophets and messengers of God to mankind including Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. You will be able to see and meet any and all of your friends and relatives. You will live an eternal life of bliss in paradise.

Reflections:

The benefits mentioned above and many more cannot be purchased with money anywhere in the world. No one is to sell them to you or to advertise them on TV. You have to take the initiative yourself and try to acquire them by accepting Islam first and then by practicing its teachings. You should be honest with yourself, sincere, and truthful to the Creator. You should try wholeheartedly to practice what you believe, regardless of whether someone else is good or not While seeking happiness is a must, it should not be measured with other people's standards or with material gains. Happiness is from its potential to its kinetic forms. People around you should feel your happiness as well as benefit from you.

Are you ready to accept this challenge today? Remember, tomorrow may not come, and it will be too late?

By: Ahmad H. Sakr, Ph.D
Source: www.islamdoor.com

Best Deeds

2007-11-03T02:08:00.000-07:00

It is narrated on the authority of Abdullah bin Mas'ood (may Allah be pleased with him), who observed:

"I asked Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) which deed was the best." He (the Holy Prophet) replied: 'The Prayer at its appointed hour.' I (again) asked: "Then what?" He (the Holy Prophet) replied: 'Kindness to the parents.' I (again) asked: "Then what?" He replied: 'Earnest struggle (Jihad) in the cause of Allah.' I refrained from asking any more questions for fear of annoying him. (Sahih Muslim: 120)

Abu Hurairah (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) was asked about the best of deeds. He observed: "Belief in Allah." He (the inquirer) asked: 'What next?' He (the Holy Prophet) replied: "Jihad (struggle to the utmost) in the cause of Allah." He (the inquirer) again asked: 'What next?' He (the Holy Prophet) replied: "Pilgrimage accepted into the grace of the Lord." (Sahih Muslim: 118)

Abu Dharr (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that I asked the Messenger of Allah: "Which of the deeds is the best?" He (the Holy Prophet) replied: 'Belief in Allah and Jihad in His cause.' I again asked: "Who is the slave whose emancipation is the best?" He (the Holy Prophet) replied: 'One who is valuable for his master and whose price is high.' I asked: "What if I cannot afford to do it?" He (the Holy Prophet) replied: 'Help an artisan or make anything for the unskilled (laborer).' I (Abu Dharr) said: "O Messenger of Allah, you see that I am helpless in doing some of these deeds." He (the Holy Prophet) replied: 'Desist from doing mischief to the people. That is your own charity for your self.'

(Sahih Muslim: 119)

SOME OF THE HUMAN QUALITIES ALLAH, THE ALMIGHTY LOVES

"Say (O Muhammad to mankind): "If you (really) love Allah, then follow me (i.e. accept Islamic monotheism, follow the Quran and the Sunnah), Allah will love you and forgive you your sins. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful." (Quran: 3:31)

Patience

"And Allah loves as-Sabirun (the patient)." (Quran: 3:146)

Justice and Dealing with Equity

"Be just: that is nearer to piety; and fear Allah." (Quran: 5:8)

Putting Trust in Allah

"Certainly, Allah loves those who put their trust (in Him)." (Quran: 3:159)

Perfection of One's Work

The Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "Allah loves that if one does a job he perfects it."

Rescuing

Abu Ya ‘la Dailami and Ibn Asakir narrated: Abu Hurairah and Anas Ibn Malik said: Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "Allah loves rescuing the one who needs rescue."

Being Kind and Gentle to Others

Baihaqani narrated: Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "Allah is kind and gentle (to others)."

Kindliness

"Aisha narrated: The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: "Allah loves kindliness in all matters." (Bukhari)

Repentance

"Truly, Allah loves those who turn unto him in repentance." (Quran: 2:222)

Piety

"Verily, then Allah loves those who are al-Muttaqun (the pious)."

(Quran: 3:76)

Good-doing

"Truly, Allah loves Al-Muhsinun (the good-doers)." (Quran: 2:195)

Body Purification

"And Allah loves those who make themselves clean and pure [ i.e. who clean their private parts with dust (which has the properties of soap) and water from urine and stools, after answering the call of nature]." (Quran: 9:108)

Humility of the Rich

Muslim narrated: Sa'd Ibn Abi Waqqas said: Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "Allah loves the believer who is pious and rich, but does not show off."

Belief and Work

Al-Tabarani narrated: Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "Allah loves the slave who believes and acquires a career (or work)."

Reflection of Allah's Grace

Al-Tirmidhi narrated: Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "Allah loves from amongst his slaves, the one who has a sense of zeal or honor."

Magnanimity

Al-Hakim narrated: The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: "Allah is All-Generous and He loves generosity in sale, purchase and judgment."

Virtuosity

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: " Allah loves the slave-believer who is poor but virtuous enough to refrain from begging though he has many children." (Muslim and Ahmed)

Loftiness

Al-Tabarani narrated: the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said: "Allah loves lofty matters and superiority and hates inferior matters."

Justice

Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "Allah loves that you be just toward your children even when kissing them." (Ibn Al-Najjar)

Strength

Muslim narrated: Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "The strong believer is better and more loved by Allah than the weak one, but they are both good."

Love for the Sake of Allah

Al-Tabarani, Ibn Ya'la, Ibn Hibban and Al-Hakim narrated: Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "If two men love each other for the sake of Allah, the stronger in love to his brother will be more loved by Allah."

Forgiveness

Ibn Iday narrated: Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "Allah is All-Forgiving and He loves forgiveness."

Continuous Performance of Righteous Deeds

Bukhari and Muslim narrated: Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "The best loved deeds to Allah are the ones that are continuous even if they are not very many."

Loving and Visiting Believers

Malik narrated: Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "Allah said: My love is due to those who meet for My sake, visit one another and make any effort for My pleasure."

Exhortation and Advising

Abdullah, the son of Imam Ahmed narrated: It was said: Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "The best loved slaves to Allah are those who exhort their slaves."

Love of Virtuous Deeds

Ibn Abi Al-Dunya narrated: Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "The best loved slaves to Allah are those who are made to love virtue and loving virtuous deeds is made lovely to them."

Good Manners and Conduct

Al-Tirmidhi narrated: Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "The best loved by me and the nearest to me on the seats on the Day of Resurrection are those who have the best manners and conduct amongst you, who are intimate, are on good terms with others and are humble, and the most hated by me and who will be on the furthest seats from me are those who are talkative and arrogant."

Love of Allah is the basis of worship that should be directed to Him alone. Any other love should be for His sake too. The real love of Allah is to do whatever He ordained and to abandon whatever He forbade, in addition to following the Prophet's Sunnah.

Whoever obeys someone or something other than Allah and His Messenger, or follows any saying other than theirs, or fears other than Allah or seeks the pleasure of other than Allah, or puts his trust in other than Him, does not love Allah, nor does he love His Messenger. Muslims should also love one another and wish the best for one another. Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said:

"One will not be a true believer unless he loves for his brother what he loves for himself." (Bukhari, Muslim, Nasa'i, Ahmed and Ibn Majah)

Imam Malik and Imam Ahmed narrated: Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said: "Allah said: My love is due to those who love one another for My sake."

Source: 4newmuslims.org

The Virtues of the Month of Sha'ban

2007-11-03T02:05:00.001-07:00

Sha'ban is the name of the (eighth) month of the Islamic lunar calendar, and it is so called because in this month the Arabs used to disperse (tasha'aba) in search of water, or it was said that it is so called because it sha'aba (branches out or emerges) i.e., it appears between the months of Rajab and Ramadan.

Fasting in Sha'ban

Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) said: "The Messenger (p.b.u.h.) used to fast until we thought he would never break his fast, and not fast until we thought he would never fast. I never saw the Messenger of Allah fasting for an entire month except in Ramadan, and I never saw him fast more than he did in Sha'ban." (Bukhari and Muslim). According to a report narrated by Muslim, "He used to fast all of Sha'ban, he used to fast all but a little of Sha'ban."

A group of scholars, including Ibn al-Mubarak and others thought that the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) did not fast all of Sha'ban, but he fasted most of it. This is supported by a report in Saheeh Muslim narrated from Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her), who said: "I never knew of him - meaning the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) - fasting for any entire month apart from Ramadan." According to another report also narrated by Muslim, Aisha said: "I never saw him fast for any entire month from the time he came to Madeenah, apart from Ramadan."

It was reported in Bukhari and Muslim that Ibn 'Abbas said: "The Messenger of Allah (p.b.u.h.) did not fast any entire month apart from Ramadan." Ibn 'Abbas regarded it as Makrooh to fast any entire month apart from Ramadan. Ibn Hajar (may Allah have mercy on him) said: "He observed more voluntary fasts in Sha'ban than in any other month, and he used to fast most of Sha'ban."

Usamah Ibn Zayd (may Allah be pleased with them both) said: "I said, 'O Messenger of Allah, I do not see you fasting in any other month like you fast in Sha'ban.' He said, 'That is a month to which people do not pay attention, between Rajab and Ramadan, and it is a month in which deeds are lifted up to the Lord of the Worlds. I like for my deeds to be lifted up when I am fasting.'" (Nasa'i). According to a report narrated by Abu Dawood, he said: "The most beloved of months for the Messenger of Allah (p.b.u.h.) to fast in was Sha'ban, and his fasting in Sha'ban was continuous with his fasting in Ramadan." (Classed as Saheeh by al-Albani)

Ibn Rajab (may Allah have mercy on him) said: "Fasting in Sha'ban is better than fasting in the Sacred Months, and the best of voluntary fasts are those that are (observed in the months) closest to Ramadan, before or after. The status of these fasts is like that of al-Sunan al-Rawatib which are done before and after fard (obligatory prayers) and which make up for any shortfall in the number of obligatory prayers. The same applies to fasts observed before and after Ramadan. Just as al-Sunan al-Rawatib are better than other kinds of voluntary prayers, so fasts observed (in the months) before and after Ramadan are better than fasts at other times.

The phrase "Sha'ban is a month to which people do not pay attention, between Rajab and Ramadan" indicates that because it comes between two important months, the Sacred Month of Rajab and the month of fasting, people are preoccupied with those two months and they do not pay attention to Sha'ban. Many people think that fasting in Rajab is better than fasting in Sha'ban, because Rajab is one of the Sacred Months, but this is not the case.

In the Hadeeth quoted above there is an indication that even though certain times, places and people may be commonly thought to posses a particular virtue, there may be others that are better than them. It also indicates that it is Mustahabb (recommended) to make good use of the times when people tend to be negligent, by doing acts of worship. A group of the Salaf used to fill the time between Maghrib and Isha with prayer, saying that it was a time when many people were negligent. Another example is the remembrance of Allah (Dhikr) in the marketplace, because this means one is remembering Him in a place where people tend to be negligent and among people who are negligent. There are a number of benefits that come from making good use of times when people are often negligent, and using these times for worship, including the following:

It is more concealing of one's good works, and hiding and concealing Nawafil (supererogatory) actions is better, especially fasting, because it is a secret between a slave and his Lord. Hence it was said that there is no element of showing off in fasting. One of the Salaf used to fast for years without anybody knowing about it; he would go from his home to the marketplace carrying two loaves of bread, which he would give away in charity, and he would fast. His family thought that he ate the bread, whilst the people in the marketplace thought that he had eaten at home. The Salaf thought it was Mustahabb for a person who was fasting to do things that would conceal the fact that he was fasting. It was reported that Ibn Mas'ood said: "When you get up in the morning and you are fasting, then apply perfume." Qutadah said: "It is Mustahabb for the (man) who is fasting to apply perfume so that there will be no sign that he is fasting."

By the same token, doing righteous deeds at times when people are distracted and negligent is more difficult. One of the indications of how virtuous a deed is, is how difficult it is: if everyone is doing a certain action, it is easy, but if most people are negligent, this makes it more difficult for those who do remember Allah. Muslim narrated from the Hadeeth of Ma'qil Ibn Yasar: "(The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) said:) 'Worship at times of tribulation (Fitnah) is like Hijrah to me.'" (The phrase "worship at times of tribulation" refers to times of upheavals and trials, when people follow their own desires, and those who adhere to Islam are doing something difficult.)

The scholars differed as to the reasons why the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) fasted so much in Sha'ban. Their various opinions were as follows:

That he had been unable to fast three days out of every month because he was traveling or for some other reason, so he made them all up together in Sha'ban. When the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) began to do some Nafl (supererogatory) action, he would persist in it, and if he missed it, he would make it up later.

It was said that his wives used to make up the days that they missed of Ramadan in Sha'ban, so he used to fast because of that. This is the opposite of what was reported from Aisha, that she used to delay making up days that she had missed in Ramadan until Sha'ban because she was too busy with the Messenger of Allah (p.b.u.h.) to fast.

It was said that it was because this is a month which people do not pay attention to. This is the most correct view, because of the Hadeeth of Usamah quoted above, in which it says: "That is a month to which people do not pay attention, between Rajab and Ramadan."

When Sha'ban began, if the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) still had some voluntary fasts outstanding that he had not fasted, he would make them up during Sha'ban so that his Nafl fasts would be complete before Ramadan came. Similarly, if he had missed some Sunnah prayers or he had missed Qiyam al-Layl (night prayer), he would make it up. Aisha used to make the most of this opportunity to make up any obligatory Ramadan fasts that she had missed because of menstruation; during other months she was too busy with the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) to fast.

We should also note here that anyone who has any missed fasts to make up has to make them up before the next Ramadan comes. It is not permissible to delay it until after the following Ramadan except in cases of necessity (such as a valid excuse that continues between the two Ramadans). Whoever is able to make them up before the (second) Ramadan and does not do so, has to make them up after the (second) Ramadan and in addition to that, he has to repent and to feed one poor person for each day that he missed. This is the view of Malik, al-Shafa'i and Ahmad.

Another benefit of fasting in Sha'ban is that it is a kind of training for the Ramadan fast, in case a person finds it difficult to fast when Ramadan starts; if he fasts in Sha'ban he will have gotten used to fasting and he will feel strong and energetic when Ramadan comes. Sha'ban is like an introduction to Ramadan and it has some things in common with Ramadan, such as fasting, reciting Quran and giving in charity. Salamah Ibn Suhayl used to say: "The month of Sha'ban is the month of reciters (of the Quran)." Habeeb Ibn Abi Thabit used to say, when Sha'ban came, "This is the month of reciters (of the Quran)." When Sha'ban came, 'Amr Ibn Qays al-Mala'i used to close his store and devote his time to reading the Quran.

Fasting at the end of Sha'ban

It was reported in Bukhari and Muslim from 'Imran Ibn Husayn (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) said to a man, "Have you fasted anything of the Sirar of this month?" He said, "No." He said: "If you have not fasted, then fast two days." According to a report narrated by Bukhari: I think he meant Ramadan. According to a report narrated by Muslim, (the Prophet - p.b.u.h.) said: "Have you fasted anything of the Sirar of Sha'ban?"

There was some dispute as to the meaning of the word Sirar. The most well-known view is that it refers to the end of the month. The end of the month is called Sirar because the moon is hidden at that time. Someone may raise the point that it was reported in Bukhari and Muslim from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) said: "Do not pre-empt Ramadan by one or two days, except for those who have the habit of fasting regularly, in which case they may fast." (Bukhari and Muslim).

How can we reconcile the Hadeeth which encourages fasting at this time with the Hadeeth which says not to fast at this time? The answer is: many of the scholars and most of those who commented on this Hadeeth said: this man to whom the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) addressed this question was known to have the habit of fasting regularly, or else he had made a vow, so the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) commanded him to make up his fast. There are also other points of view on this issue.

In brief we may say that there are three scenarios for fasting at the end of Sha'ban:

The first scenario is when a person fasts at the end of Sha'ban with the intention of being on the safe side and not missing the first day of Ramadan. This is forbidden.

The second scenario is when a person fasts with the intention of fulfilling a vow or of making up a day of Ramadan that he missed or as an act of expiation (kaffarah), etc. This is permissible according to the majority.

The third scenario is when this is purely a voluntary fast. This is regarded as makrooh (disliked) by those who said that we should differentiate between Sha'ban and Ramadan by not fasting for a while. Among those who said this was al-Hasan. If it happens to coincide with a day when a person habitually fasts, Malik and those who agreed with him permitted this, but al-Shafa'i, al-'Awza'i, Ahmad and others made a distinction between cases where it is a fast which a person habitually observes or otherwise.

In conclusion, the Hadeeth of Abu Hurayrah quoted above is what we should follow according to the majority of scholars. It is makrooh to observe a voluntary fast one or two days before Ramadan for those who do not habitually fast on those days and who have not previously fasted until the end of Sha'ban.

It may be asked: why is it Makrooh to fast just before Ramadan (for those who do not have a prior habit of fasting)? The answer is that there are a number of reasons why this is so, such as:

Firstly: lest extra days be added to the fast of Ramadan that are not part of it. Fasting on the day of Eid is prohibited for the same reason, lest we fall into the same trap as the People of the Book with regard to fasting, as they added to their fasts because of their own whims and desires. For the same reason it is also forbidden to fast on the "day of doubt". 'Ammar said: whoever fasts on this day has disobeyed Abu'l-Qasim (p.b.u.h.). The "day of doubt" is a day when people are not sure whether it is Ramadan or not, when news of the sighting of the crescent moon comes from one whose word cannot be accepted. As for a cloudy day, some of the scholars said that this was also a 'day of doubt' and said that fasting was not allowed on this day. This is the view of the majority.

Secondly: to make a distinction between Fard (obligatory) fasts and Nafl fasts, because making a clear distinction between Fard actions and Nafl actions is prescribed in Islam. Hence it is Haram to fast on the day of Eid, and the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) forbade following an obligatory prayer immediately with another prayer unless they are separated by saying salam or speaking, especially in the case of the Sunnah prayer performed just before Fajr. It is prescribed to make a clear separation between this prayer and the obligatory prayer. Hence it is prescribed to pray it at home and to lie down afterwards.

When the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) saw a man praying at the time when the Iqamah had been given for Fajr, he said to him: "Al-Subh is four Rak'ahs (units)?" (Bukhari).

Some people may think that the reason why we do not fast just before Ramadan is so that we can make the most of eating and have our fill of our desires before we have to deny ourselves by fasting. This is an ignorant mistake on the part of those who think this.

Source: missionislam.com

Smoking Haram-Why?

2007-11-03T01:58:00.000-07:00

The declaration that "There is no God Worthy of being worshipped except Allah & that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah", demands that the Muslim accepts the Decrees set by Allah and by His Messenger-Muhammad (p.b.u.h.)

Islam is a Revelation from Allah with a complete code of life. It tells what is good and what is evil: Allah says in the Holy Quran: And We have shown him (man) the two ways (good and evil). (Quran 90/10)

He allows them all that is good and lawful, and prohibits them as unlawful all that is evil (things, deeds, beliefs, persons, foods, drinks, etc.). (Quran 7/157)

So, is smoking (cigarettes, pipes, etc.) evil or not? Let us examine its effects:
* Smoking is a killer: causes lung-cancer, lung-tuberculosis and heart diseases.
Allah says: And do not kill yourselves. (Quran 4/29)
He also says: And do not throw yourselves into destruction. (Quran 2/195)

These verses are sufficient to make smoking Haram.
* Smoking is a wasting of wealth. Allah says: ...But spend not wastefully (your wealth) in the manner of a spendthrift, Verily, spendthrifts are brothers of the devils, and the Devil (Satan) is ever ungrateful to his Lord. (Quran 17/26-27)

* The smoker is unjust to himself as well as his family by burning away his money and his chest!
* The smoker not only causes harm to himself, he/she also inflicts harms upon others around him/her.
The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) said: "There should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm." (Saheeh Al-Jami 7517)
* The smokers cause the spread of evil; they smoke openly and thus encourage others to do the same.
* The smokers dislike fasting and praying because they become impatient. They want to go for the next "round". The smoker becomes like an edict.
* The smoker smells bad! His car, home, clothes etc. carry the bad smell too.

From the above, it is clear that smoking is evil and thus it is Haram (unlawful).
If you are under any kind of stress, then turn to Allah, read the Holy Quran, and be with non-smokers. Seek Allah's help and don’t be enslaved to something that burns you and your money.

By: Dr. Saleh As-Saleh
Source: www.islamunveiled.org

Salaat ad-Duha (Forenoon prayer)

2007-11-03T01:56:00.000-07:00

Narrated Aisha (May Allah be pleased with her): Allah's Messenger (p.b.u.h.) used to pray four Rakats (units) in Duha prayer and added whatever Allah wished for him. (Muslim)

Let it be known that Ishraaq, Salaat ul-Awwabin and Duha are different names that stand for identically the same forenoon prayer. The time of this prayer starts with the sunrise and goes on until one-fourth of the day. The least number of Rakats of Duha prayer is two and the maximum is twelve. The preferable among them are four which are supported and approved by the Ahadith of the Prophet (p.b.u.h.). It may also be remembered that this prayer is a Sunnah of former messengers as they used to offer it during their times. Hence, this prayer is a Sunnah and mustahabb (desirable). As to the matter of this prayer being called a Bidah (innovation) by Umar (May Allah be pleased with him) it only alludes to the fact that if someone develops a habit of continually offering it, it may be regarded as an innovation, as the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) did not always offer it.

Narrated Zaid bin Arqam (May Allah be pleased with him) Allah's Messenger (p.b.u.h.), "The prayer of those who are penitent is offered when the young weaned camels feel the heat of the sun." (at-Tirmidhi)

This Hadith indicates that the best time of Duha prayer is just before noon.

Narrated Anas (May Allah be pleased with him) Allah's Messenger (p.b.u.h.) said, "Whoever prays twelve Rakats (units) of Duha, Allah will build a castle for him in Paradise." (at-Tirmidhi who graded it Gharib "unfamiliar, doubtful").

Narrated Aisha (May Allah be pleased with her): Allah's Messenger (p.b.u.h.) entered my house and prayed eight Rakats (units) of Duha prayer. (Ibn Hibban in his Sahih)

By: Al-Haafidh Ibn Hajar al-Asqalaanee
Source: islaam.com

Eid and Zakat ul-Fitr

2007-11-03T01:45:00.000-07:00

- Playing, recreation, and eating on the day of Eid:

These are permissible as long as they stay within the acceptable bounds of Islam. Anas said: "when the prophet (p.b.u.h.) came to madinah, they had two days for amusement. the prophet (p.b.u.h.) has exchanged these days for two better days: the day of breaking the fast and the day of sacrifice." (Nsa'i and Ibn Hibban)

- Taking women and children to the prayer area:

The prophet (p.b.u.h.) used to take his wives and daughters to the two Eids. Umm Atiyah said: "we were ordered to go out with the single and menstruating women to the two Eids in order to witness the good and the supplications of the muslims. the menstruating women though would stay away from the prayer area." (Bukhari and Muslim)

- Going to the prayer area:

The prophet (p.b.u.h.) used to go to the prayer area by walking. Jaber narrated: "on the days of Eid, the prophet (p.b.u.h.) would go to the prayer area by one route and come back by another route." (Bukhari)

- Eating before going to the prayer area:

Since Eid al-Fitr is the day on which Muslims break their Ramadhan fast, it is preferable to eat before going to the Eid prayer. It is a Sunnah of the prophet (p.b.u.h.) to eat an odd number of dates before going to pray salat al-Eid. Anas reported: "the prophet (p.b.u.h.) would not go out on the day of Eid al-Fitr without eating an odd number of dates." (Bukhari.)

- Preparation for Eid prayer:

It is preferred to make ghusl (take a bath), wear one's best clothes and, for men, to wear perfume before going to salat al-Eid. Ibn al-Qayyim said: "the prophet (p.b.u.h.) used to wear his best clothes for the Eid prayers and he had clothes that he reserved for the two Eids and Jumuah."

- Making Takbeer:

Takbeer starts from the night of Eid's eve until the imam comes out to start the prayer. Allah says: "you should complete the prescribed period and then you should glorify allah (i.e., say takbeer) for having guided you so that you may be grateful to him." the form of takbeer is related by 'umar and ibn mas`ud: "Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, la illaha illallah. Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar wa lillahil-hamd."

- Congratulating each other:

It has been narrated that when the prophet's companions met each other on the Eid day, they would say to each other: "may Allah accept from us and from you." (Ahmad)

Zakat al Fitr

Zakat al Fitr is an obligatory charity on every muslim at the end of the month of ramadan. Ibn 'Umar said: "the prophet (p.b.u.h.) enjoined the payment of one sa'a of dates or one sa'a of barley as Zakat al-Fitr on every Muslim, young and old, male and female, free and slave." (Bukhari and Muslim)

The purpose of Zakat al-Fitr is to purify the one who has fasted from any type of indecent act or speech he might have committed while fasting. it also helps the poor and the needy. Ibn abbas said: "the messenger of Allah (p.b.u.h.) enjoined Zakat al-Fitr on the one who fasts to shield him from any indecent act or speech and for the purpose of providing food for the needy." (Abu Dawud and Ibn Majah.)

The amount of Zakat al-Fitr

As the first Hadith indicated, the amount of Zakat al-Fitr is one Sa'a. Sa'a is a volume measure corresponding approximately to the volume of 5 lb of good wheat. The material of Zakat can be either dates, barley, wheat, rice, corn or similar items considered as basic foods. Abu Saeed said: "we used to give for Zakat al-Fitr on behalf of every child, aged person, free man or slave during the lifetime of the messenger of Allah (p.b.u.h.) one Sa'a of food, or one Sa'a of dried yogurt, or one Sa'a of barley, or one Sa'a of dates, or one Sa'a of raisins." (Bukhari and Muslim.)

The time for Zakat al-Fitr

Zakat al-Fitr has to be paid by the end of Ramadhan. There are two times to pay akat al-Fitr. Either one or two days before Eid as 'Umar used to do, or the day of Eid before the Eid prayer. Ibn Umar reported that the prophet (p.b.u.h.) ordered them to pay Zakat al-Fitr before they go out to perform the Eid prayer. If Zakat al-Fitr is paid after the Eid prayer, it will only be considered as regular charity. The prophet (p.b.u.h.) said: "if one pays Zakat al-Fitr before the salat, it is considered an accepted Zakat, if he pays it after the salat, it is considered an ordinary charity." (Abu Dawud)

Zakat al-Fitr is to be given to the same eight categories or people as in the other types of zakat. Some scholars say that the poor and the needy are the most deserving ones since the prophet (p.b.u.h.) said that it had "...the purpose of providing food for the needy."

By: AlJumuah Magazine
Source: islaam.com

The Muslim is Friendly And Likeable

2007-11-03T01:43:00.000-07:00

The Muslim who truly understands the teachings of his religion is gentle, friendly and likeable. He mixes with people and gets along with them. This is something which should be a characteristic of the Muslim who understands that keeping in touch with people and earning their trust is one of the most important duties of the Muslim. It is an effective means of conveying the message of truth to them, and exposing them to its moral values, because people only listen to those whom they like, trust and accept. Hence there are many Hadiths which commend the type of person who is friendly and liked by others. Such a person is one of those chosen ones who are beloved by the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) and will be closest to him on the Day of Resurrection:
"Shall I not tell you who among you is the most beloved to me and will be closest to me on the Day of Resurrection?" He repeated it two or three times, and they said, 'Yes, O Messenger of Allah (p.b.u.h.).’ He said: "Those of you who are the best in attitude and character." (Reported by Ahmad and its Isnad is Jayyid) Some reports add: "Those who are down to earth and humble, who get along with others and with whom others feel comfortable."

One of the attributes of the believer is that he gets along with others and others feel comfortable with him. He likes people and they like him. If he is not like this, then he will not be able to convey the message or achieve anything of significance. Whoever is like that has no goodness in him, as in the Hadith:
"The believer gets along with people and they feel comfortable with him. There is no goodness in the one who does not get along with people and with whom they do not feel comfortable.” (Reported by Ahmad and al-Bazar; the men of Ahmad's Isnad are Rijal as-Sahih)

The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) set the highest example of good behaviour towards people. He was skilful in softening their hearts and called them to follow him in word and deed. He demonstrated how to reach people's hearts and win their love and admiration.

He was always cheerful and easy-going, never harsh. When he came to any gathering, he would sit wherever there was a free space, and he told others to do likewise. He treated everyone equally, so that no one who was present in a gathering would feel that anyone else was receiving preferential treatment. If anyone came to him and asked for something, he would give it to them, or at least respond with kind words. His good attitude extended to everyone and he was like a father to them. The people gathered around him were truly equal, distinguished only by their level of taqwa. They were humble, respecting their elders, showing compassion to young ones, giving priority to those in need and taking care of strangers.

The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) never used to disappoint anyone who came to ask from him. There are three characteristics that he did not possess: he was not argumentative, he did not talk too much, and he did not concern himself with matters that were not his business. There are three things that he never did to people: he never criticized anyone, he never said "Shame on you!" to anyone, and he never looked for anyone's faults. He never said anything but that for which he hoped to earn reward. When he spoke, the people around him would listen earnestly, sitting still as if there were birds on their heads. When he was silent, then they would speak. They never argued with one another in his presence. They would smile at whatever he smiled at, and would be impressed by whatever impressed him. He would be patient with a stranger who might be harsh in his requests or questions, and his Companions would ask the stranger to speak gently. He said, "If you see someone in need, then help him." He never accepted praise except from someone who was thanking him for a favour, and he never cut off anyone who was speaking; he would wait until the person indicated that he had finished, or stood up.

Aishah tells us that he used to be cautious of the worst type of people, and he would speak gently to them and treat them well. A man sought permission to enter upon him and he said, "Let him in, what a bad brother of his tribe he is!" When the man came in, he spoke gently to him. Aishah said: ‘O Messenger of Allah (p.b.u.h.), you said what you said, and then you spoke gently to him.’ He (p.b.u.h.) said, "O Aishah, the worst of people is the one whom people avoid (or are gentle towards) because they fear his slander." (Bukhari and Muslim)

The true Muslim follows in the footsteps of his Prophet in his dealings with all people, whether they are good or bad, so that he is liked and accepted by all people.

By: Dr. Muhammad Ali Al-Hashimi
Source: islaam.com

Prophet Muhammad (Peace be Upon him)

2007-11-03T01:41:00.000-07:00

"We have not sent you (O Muhammad) but as a universal (Messenger) to men giving them glad tidings and warning them (against sin) but most men understand not." (Quran: 34/28)

"Indeed in the Messenger of Allah (Muhammad) you have a good example to follow for him who hopes for (the Meeting with) Allah and the Last Day, and remembers Allah much." (Quran: 33/21)

Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) Allah’s Messenger to the Whole Mankind

Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h was Allah's great Prophet and Messenger like Jesus, the Son of Mary. The Prophet's mission, however, is universal. Allah (S.W.T.) meaning: (the Exalted, Most Glorious) tells mankind that Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) is no more than a Messenger (Quran: 3/144), the unlettered Prophet who believes in Him and His Words (Quran 7/158). He is the Seal of the Prophets and the true universal Messenger of Allah to the whole mankind (Quran: 33/40). Allah (S.W.T.) makes this very clear:

"We have not sent you (O Muhammad) but as a universal (Messenger) to men giving them glad tidings and warning them (against sin) but most men understand not." (Quran: 34/28)

The Messenger (p.b.u.h.) possesses an exalted (standard of) character (Quran 68/4) and an excellent exemplar for him who hopes in Allah (S.W.T.) and the Final Day, and who remembers Allah (S.W.T.) much (Quran 33/21). Allah (S.W.T.) endowed him with exalted standard of character for us to follow. Every aspect of his life has been fully dealt with, providing complete guidance to the whole mankind. For our guidance, Allah (S.W.T.) commands us to believe and obey His Messenger (p.b.u.h.):

"Say (O Muhammad to mankind): ‘If you (really) love Allah then follow me (i.e. accept Islamic Monotheism, follow Quran and the Sunnah), Allah will love you and forgive you your sins. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.’ Say (O Muhammad): ‘Obey Allah and the Messenger (Muhammad).’ But if they turn away, then Allah does not like the disbelievers." (Quran: 3/31)

"O mankind! Verily, there has come to you the Messenger (Muhammad) with the truth from your Rabb (Sustainer, Lord). So believe in him, it is better for you. But if you disbelieve, then certainly to Allah belongs all that is in the heavens and the earth. And Allah is Ever All-Knowing, All-Wise." (Quran: 4/170)

"O you who believe! Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger (Muhammad) and render not vain your deeds." (Quran: 47/33)

It is a must that we obey Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.). Allah (S.W.T.) tells us that he who obeys His Messenger (p.b.u.h.) obeys Him:

"He who obeys the Messenger (Muhammad) has indeed obeyed Allah, but he who turns away, then we have not sent you (Muhammad) as a watcher over them." (Quran: 4/80)

Allah (S.W.T.) sent His Messenger with Guidance and the religion of truth to make it prevail over all religions. He says:

"It is He (Allah) Who has sent His Messenger with Guidance and the Religion of Truth that he may proclaim it over all religion even though the Pagans may detest (it)." (Quran: 61/9)

Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) being the True Messenger of Allah (S.W.T.) not only sincerely believes and testifies to the Oneness of Allah, the Only True God, Who Alone deserves all praises and true worship, but also teaches the same universal message. In one of his teachings we learn how he teaches us to glorify and testify Allah (S.W.T.) as True:

“Ibn Abbas (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that when the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) got up at night to offer the Tahajjud (midnight) prayer, he used to say: “O Allah! All the praises are for you. You are the Holder of the heavens and the earth, and whatever is in them. All the praises are for You. You have the possession of the heavens and the earth and whatever is in them. All the praises are for You. You are the Light of the heavens and the earth and all the praises are for You. You are the King of the heavens and the earth and all the praises are for You. You are the Truth and Your Promise is the truth, and to meet You is true. Your Word is the truth and Paradise is true, Hell is true, all the Prophets are true, Muhammad is true, and the Day of Resurrection is true. O Allah! I surrender (my will) to You. I believe in You and depend on You, repent to You, and with Your help I argue (with my opponents, the non-believers). And I take You as a Judge (to judge between us). Please forgive me my previous and future sins; and whatever I concealed or revealed. And You are the One Who makes (some people) forward and (some) backward. There is none to be worshipped but You.” (Bukhari 2/221, 9/482 and 534)

If you are among those who have read some of the countless distortions written against Islam and the Prophet (p.b.u.h.), time has come that you believe in him as the true Messenger of Allah (S.W.T.) to all humanity. Verily, Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) is the true universal messenger and the final Prophet of Allah. In fact, he is known as the As-Siddiq and Al-‘Amin (the Truthful and the Trustworthy). Many non-Muslims who knew and listened to him during his time, embraced Islam because of his truthfulness. Indeed, Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) is true and he teaches nothing but the Truth. Above all, he teaches us the worship of the One True God, which is the very essence of the true religion, Islam. For your salvation, believe in Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) as the true, final Messenger of Allah (S.W.T.) and believe in the Message with which he was sent. Believe in Islam as the true religion from Allah (S.W.T.). Take admonition from the following authentic Hadith:

“Abu Hurairah (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) said, ‘By Him in Whose Hand is the life of Muhammad, he amongst the community of Jews or Christians hears about me; but does not affirm his belief in that with which I have been sent (i.e., Islam) and dies in his state (of disbelief), he shall be but one of the denizens of Hell-Fire.’” (Muslim 1/ 284)

The Life of Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.)

Birth and Prophethood:

Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) was born on the twelfth (12) of Rabiul Awwal 53 B.H. (570 A.D of the Christian era) in a noble family of Banu Hashim ancestry. However, he was not fortunate enough to have been born wealthy as he was born an orphan. His father, Abdullah bin Abdul Muttalib, died of sickness at the age of 25 on a trading journey to Syria, leaving his wife Amenah only a few months pregnant.

His grandfather, Abdul Muttalib, who was the chief of Makkah at that time, showed pride in him as Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) compensated him for the loss of his son who died in the prime of his youth. His mother showed affection for her son as she awaited the best nurses to come and take care of him: The tradition at that time was that nurses would come from the desert seeking to be the custodians of the children of nobility in return for good pay and gifts. Giving that Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) was not wealthy all nurses turned away from him, Halimah of the Banu Saad tribe was one of them, but when she could not find any other child she was ashamed to return home empty-handed, so she went back and took Muhammad, and since then Allah showered his mercy on her; for instance animals started giving plenty of milk after they had been dry. Therefore, she and her husband felt they were blessed to have taken Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) and became very attached to him.

Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) spent five years with Banu Saad during which nothing out of the ordinary happened except one told incident which scared Halimah and became known as “the splitting of his chest.” When he was playing with the other boys Jibril held him, threw him down, split his chest, took out his heart and took out a clump from it and said: “this is Satins portion of you.” Then he washed him in a basin made of gold with the water of Zam Zam, then sealed his chest and returned him where he was. (Anas, Muslim and Ahmed) The boys ran to Halimah and said Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) has been killed. They came back and found him alive but pale.

Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) returned to Makkah at the age of five to his mother and grandfather who took good care of him, but the days refused to allow him tranquility among those tender hearts, as his mother died during a visit to Madinah to visit her husband’s grave. She took Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) and his maid Umm Aiman with her. On the way back, she fell very sick and died in Abwaa leaving Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) with Umm Aiman.

His grandfather always took good care of him and never left him alone, he took him to all public gatherings. However, at the age of eight, Abdul Muttalib died leaving him into his uncle Abu Talib’s care. Since Abu Talib had many children and was not wealthy, Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) insisted on sharing the burdens of life with him. He went with his uncle on a trading journey to Syria at the age of thirteen. He met a monk called Bahira during the journey who looked at his face and the sign on his back (the sign of Prophethood) and asked Abu Talib: “What is this boy to you?” ‘My son he said.’ “His father should not be alive.” Said Buhira. Abu Talib then said, ‘Yes, in fact he is my brother’s son’ and told him the rest of the story. The monk said “Now you are telling me the truth. Take him back and be careful of the Jews over him.”

Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) then returned to Makkah and resumed his life, working as a shepherd in his early life. He did not acquire knowledge or education from a monk or a philosopher or sorcerer, as was the norm then. Instead he read through the pages of life and took what he found good. He combined the good qualities of discipline with spiritual purity, rightness and contentment.

In this manner, he entered his third phase of life and got acquainted with his first wife Khadijah (May Allah be pleased with her) who was a merchant woman of nobility and wealth. She had heard of his truthfulness and trustworthiness, so she offered him to take her trade to Syria (before marrying him). He was 25 years old and she was 40 years old when they got married. Their marriage lasted until she died at the age of 65.

The Message of Islam:

Every year, Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) used to leave Makkah to spend Ramadan in the cave of Hira where he used to meditate and worship for self-purification away from the falsehood of Jahilia. In this cave, He met with the heavenly host and listened to the voice of the angel telling him to read. He knew that he had become a Prophet of Allah (p.b.u.h.) and that it was Jibril, the ambassador of revelation who came to him; then the mission’s struggle began.

Quraish spared no efforts to fight Islam and persecuted those who embraced it. The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) and his companions abused, ridiculed, humiliated, accused of indulging in magic, and the weak and oppressed believers were tortured until they disbelieved, died or swooned (as they had no clan to defend them).

In spite of all that Islam grew stronger, so Quraish decided to change strategy and agreed not to buy, sell or intermarry with Muslims or those who approved of their religion, protected them or sympathized with them. They wrote this agreement which was called “The General Boycott” on a piece of parchment and hung it inside the Kabah as a secret pact. Therefore, Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) and his followers were forced into confinement in the Vale of Banu Hashim where they were cut off of any assistance. This boycott lasted three long years during which only the bond of faith kept the hearts together and gave them strength. It ended after Hisham Ibn Amr (who felt very upset about the terrible plight of Muslims) gathered some clans around him and agreed to break the pact. They went to Makkah to tear the parchment and to their surprise they found that the worms had already eaten it up except the words: “In Your name O God.”

After ten years of suffering for the mission of Islam, Muhammad suffered the loss of his wife Khadijah and his uncle Abu Talib, in other words, he had lost his public life, as his uncle defended him and protected him from any calamity, and his private life, as Khadijah loved, supported and shared with him the miseries and pains of the Dawah.

Muhammad’s Attractive Leadership:

Muhammad led a very ordinary life yet the life style he practiced offered an example for others to follow. So this is an invitation to search through the Prophet’s (p.b.u.h.) lifestyle and adopt what he did in his daily activities.

To start with read what Al Hasan (son of Ali) said about the Prophet of Allah (p.b.u.h.) “Doors are not locked under him, nor do door keepers stand for him, and trays of food are not served to him in the morning or the evening. He sits on the ground and eats his food from the ground. He wears coarse (rough) clothes and rides on a donkey with others sitting behind him, and he licks his fingers after taking food.”

His regular deeds:

His habits were really simple in all aspects of his life as we see. He never started any activity without saying “In the name of Allah.”

General Conduct in Living with People:

Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) used to say Salam when he would arrive to a place where people were seated and when he wished to leave, he also said Salam as “the former is as appropriate as the latter.” (Abu Dawud)

He did not like people exalting him “He came out once leaning on a stick and a group of people stood up, he said: don’t stand up as foreigners stand up exalting each other therewith.” (Abu Dawud)

When visiting people, he used to ask permission to enter saying “Peace be upon you, may I enter.” (Abu Dawud) and when his guests were leaving he used to go with them to the door of the house.

Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) used to receive gifts and to give gifts back. (Bukhari) and he said “Make gifts to one another for a gift removes rancor from the chest.” (Tirmithi)

At home, he used to serve his family. Aisha was asked about what the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) used to do in his house, she said “He used to work for his family, that is to serve his family, and when the prayer time came, he went out for prayer.” (Bukhari)

Death of the Prophet (p.b.u.h.)

The pains of sickness attacked the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) since the ending of Safar of the eleventh year. Once he fainted and his family put medicine in his mouth. When he awoke, he showed his dislike of that. During his illness he would supplicate “O Allah help me in the pangs of death.” (Bukhari: narrated by Aisha)

He was warning Muslims -- even when he was in the throes of death -- that they should stay committed to monotheism by saying “Allah’s curse be upon the Jews and Christians, they took their Prophets’ graves as mosques.” (He was warning them against the action.) (Bukhari and Muslim)

The last thing the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) did before his death (according to Aisha): “He lay down in my lap, brushed his teeth harder than he had ever done before”, then his eyes were fixed and he was saying ‘Nay, the Companion on high from paradise.’ -I said to myself “You were given the choice and you have chosen, by Him who sent you with the Truth. Then, he passed away.” (Bukhari)

This was a brief study of the Prophet’s (p.b.u.h.) way of life. It must be stressed that we will never really understand the Sirah unless we study the Quran and Sunnah.

Praise and Glory be to Allah, we seek Allah’s forgiveness and we turn to him in repentance.

His Attributes and Manners

Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) combined both perfection of creation and perfection of manners. This impression on people can be deduced by the bliss that overwhelmed their hearts and filled them with dignity. Men’s dignity, devotion and estimation of Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) were unique and matchless. No other man in the whole world has been so honored and beloved. Those who knew him well, were fascinated and enchanted by him. They were ready to sacrifice their lives for the sake of saving a nail of his from hurt or injury. Being privileged by lots of prerogatives of perfection that no one else had been endowed with, his Companions found that he was peerless and so they loved him.

Here, we list a brief summary of the versions about his beauty and perfection. To encompass all, this is, admittedly, beyond our power.

Beauty of Creation:

Describing Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.), who passed by her tent on his journey of migration, Umm Ma‘bad Khuza‘iyah said to her husband:

“He was innocently bright and had broad countenance. His manners were fine. Neither was his belly bulging out nor was his head deprived of hair. He had black attractive eyes finely arched by continuous eyebrows. His hair glossy and black, inclined to curl, he wore long. His voice was extremely commanding. His head was large, well formed and set on a slender neck. His expression was pensive and contemplative, serene and sublime. The stranger was fascinated from the distance, but no sooner he became intimate with him than this fascination was changed into attachment and respect. His expression was very sweet and distinct. His speech was well set and free from the use of superfluous words, as if it were a rosary of beads. His stature was neither too high nor too small to look repulsive. He was a twig amongst the two, singularly bright and fresh. He was always surrounded by his Companions. Whenever he uttered something, the listeners would hear him with rapt attention and whenever he issued any command, they vied with each other in carrying it out. He was a master and a commander. His utterances were marked by truth and sincerity, free from all kinds of falsehoods and lies.”

Ali Bin Abi Talib (May Allah be pleased with him) describing him said: “Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) was neither excessively tall nor extremely short. He was medium height among his friends. His hair was neither curly nor wavy. It was in between. It was not too curly nor was it plain straight. It was both curly and wavy combined. His face was not swollen or meaty-compact. It was fairly round. His mouth was white. He had black and large eyes with long haired eyelids. His joints (limbs) and shoulder joints were rather big. He had a rod-like little hair extending from his chest down to his navel, but the rest of his body was almost hairless. He had thick hand palms and thick fingers and toes. While walking, he lifted his feet off the ground as if he had been walking in a muddy remainder of water. When he turned, he turned all. The Prophethood Seal was between his shoulders. He is the Seal of Prophets, the most generous and the bravest of all.

His speech was the most reliable. He was the keenest and the most attentive to people’s trust and was very careful to pay people’s due in full. The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) was the most tractable and the most yielding companion, seeing him unexpectedly you fear him and venerate him. He who has acquaintance with him will like him. He who describes him says:

“I have never seen such a person neither before nor after seeing him.”

Jabir bin Samurah (May Allah be pleased with him) reported that Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) had a broad face with reddish (wide) eyes and lean heels.

Abu Tufail said: “He was white, good-looking. He was neither fat nor thin; neither tall nor short.”

Anas bin Malik (May Allah be pleased with him) said: “He had unfolded hands and was pink-colored. He was neither white nor brown. He was rather whitish. In both his head and beard there were as many as twenty gray hairs, besides some gray hairs at his temples.” In another version: “and some scattered white hairs in his head.”

Abu Juhaifa (May Allah be pleased with him) said: “I have seen some gray color under his lower lip.” Al-Bara’ said: “He was of medium height, broad-shouldered; his hair went up to his earlobes. I saw him dressed in a red garment and I (assure you) I have never seen someone more handsome. At first he used to let his hair loose so as to be in compliance with the people of the Book; but later on he used to part it.”

Bara also said: “He had the most handsome face and the best character.” When he was asked: “Was the Messenger’s face sword-like?” “No,” he said: “it was moon-like.” But in another version: he said, “His face was round.” Rabi Bint Muawwidh said: “Had you seen him, you would have felt that the sun was shining.” Jabir bin Samurah said, “I saw him at one full-moony night. I looked at him. He was dressed in a red garment. I compared him with the moon and found that he was better than the moon.”

Abu Huraira (May Allah be pleased with him) said: “I have never seen a thing nicer than Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.). It seems as if the sunlight were moving within his face. I have never seen one who is faster in pace than Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.). It seemed as if the earth had folded itself up to shorten the distance for him. For we used to wear ourselves out while he was at full ease.”

Kab bin Malik (May Allah be pleased with him) said: “When he was pleased, his face would shine with so bright light that you would believe that it was a moon-piece.” Once he sweated hot at Aishah’s, and the features of his face twinkled; so I recited a poem by Abu Kabeer Al-Hudhali:

“If you watch his face-features, you will see them twinkling like the lightning of an approaching rain.”

Whenever Abu Bakr saw him he would say:

“He is faithful, chosen (by Allah), and calls for forgiveness. He shines like a full-moon light when it is far from dark (clouds).”

Umar used to recite verses by Zuhair describing Haram bin Sinan:

“Were you other than a human being, you would be a lighted moon at a full-moon night.” Then he would add: “Thus was Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.).”

When he got angry his face would go so red that you would think it were “an inflected red skin-spot with pomegranate grains on both cheeks.” Jabir bin Samurah said: “His legs were gentle, delicate and in conformity. His laughter is no more than smiling. Looking at him will make you say ‘He is black-eyed though he is not so.’”

Ibn Abbas (May Allah be pleased with him) said: “His two front teeth were splinted so whenever he speaks, light goes through them. His neck was as pure and silvery as a neck of doll. His eyelids were long-haired but his beard was thick. His forehead was broad; but his eyebrows were like the metal piece attached to a lance, but they were unhorned. His nose was high-tipped, middle-cambered with narrow nostrils. His cheeks were plain, but he had (little hair) running down like a rod from his throat to his navel. He had hair neither on his abdomen nor on his chest except some on his arms and shoulders. His chest was broad and flatted. He had long forearms with expansive palms of the hand. His legs were plain straight and stretching down. His other limbs were straight too. The two hollows of his soles hardly touch the ground. When he walks away he vanishes soon; but he walks at ease (when he is not in a hurry). The way he walks seems similar to one who is leaning forwards and is about to fall down.”

Anas (May Allah be pleased with him) said: “I have never touched silk or a silky garment softer than the palm of the Prophet’s (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him); nor have I smelt a perfume or any scent nicer than his.” In another version, “I have never smelt ambergris nor musk nor any other thing sweeter than the scent and the smell of Allah’s Messenger (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).”

Abu Juhaifa said: “I took his hand and put it on my head and I found that it was colder than ice and better scented than the musk perfume.”

Jabir bin Samurah — who was a little child then — said: “When he wiped my cheek, I felt it was cold and scented as if it had been taken out of a shop of a perfume workshop.”

Anas said, “His sweat was pearl-like.” Umm Sulaim said: “His sweat smelt nicer than the nicest perfume.”

Jabir said: “Whoever pursues a road that has been trodden by Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) will certainly scent his smell and will be quite sure that Allah’s Messenger (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) has already passed it.” The Seal of Prophethood, which was similar in size to a pigeon’s egg, was between his shoulders on the left side having spots on it like moles.

The Perfection of Soul and Nobility:

The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) was noted for superb eloquence and fluency in Arabic. He was remarkable in position and rank. He was an accurate, unpretending straightforward speaker. He was well-versed in Arabic and quite familiar with the dialects and accents of every tribe. He spoke with his entertainers using their own accents and dialects. He mastered and was quite eloquent at both Bedouin and town speech. So he had the strength and eloquence of Bedouin language as well as the clarity and the decorated splendid speech of town. Above all, there was the assistance of Allah embodied in the revealed verses of Quran.

His stamina, endurance and forgiveness — out of a commanding position — his patience and standing what he detested — these were all talents, attributes and qualities Allah Himself had brought him on. Even wise men have their flaws, but Allah’s Messenger (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), unlike everybody, the more he was hurt or injured, the more clement and patient he became. The more insolence an ignorant anybody exercised against him the more enduring he became. Aishah said:

“Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) whenever he is given the opportunity to choose between two affairs, he always chooses the easiest and the most convenient. But if he is certain that it is sinful, he will be as far as he could from it. He has never avenged himself; but when the sanctity of Allah is violated he would. That would be for Allah’s not for himself. He is the last one to get angry and the first to be satisfied. His hospitality and generosity were matchless. His gifts and endowments manifest a man who does not fear poverty.”

Ibn Abbas (May Allah be pleased with him) said: “The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) was the most generous. He is usually the most generous of all times in Ramadan, the times at which the angel Gabriel (p.b.u.h.) comes to see him. Gabriel used to visit him every night of Ramadan and review Quran with him. Verily, Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) is more generous at giving bounty or charity than the blowing wind.” Jabir said:

“The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) would never deny anything he was asked for.”

His courage, his succor and his might are distinguishable. He was the most courageous. He witnessed awkward and difficult times and stood fast at them. More than once brave men and daring ones fled away leaving him alone; yet he stood with full composure facing the enemy without turning his back. All brave men must have experienced fleeing once or have been driven off the battlefield at a round at a time except the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) Ali said: “Whenever the fight grew fierce and the eyes of fighters went red, we used to resort to the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) for succor. He was always the closest to the enemy.”

Anas said: “One night the people of Madinah felt alarmed. People went out hurriedly towards the source of sound, but the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) had already gone ahead of them. He was on the horseback of Abu Talhah which had no saddle over it, and a sword was slung round his neck, and said to them: ‘There was nothing to be afraid for.’”

He was the most modest and the first one to cast his eyes down. Abu Saeed Al-Khudri said: “He was shier than a virgin in her boudoir. When he hates a thing we read it on his face. He does not stare at anybody’s face. He always casts his eyes down. He looks at the ground more than he looks sky-wards. His utmost looks at people are glances. He is willingly and modestly obeyed by everybody. He would never name a person whom he had heard ill-news about — which he hated. Instead he would say: ‘Why do certain people do so....’” Al-Farazdaq verse of poem fits him very much and the best one to be said of:

“He casts his eyes modestly but the eyes of others are cast down due to his solemnity and words issue out of his mouth only while he is smiling.”

The Prophet (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) is the most just, the most decent, the most truthful at speech, and the most honest of all. Those who have exchanged speech with him, and even his enemies, acknowledge his noble qualities. Even before the Prophethood he was nicknamed Al-Ameen (i.e. the truthful, the trustworthy). Even then — in Al-Jahiliyah — they used to turn to him for judgment and consultation. In a version by Tirmidhi, he says that Ali had said that he had been told by Abu Jahl that he (Abu Jahl) said to Allah’s Messenger (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): “We do not call you a liar; but we do not have faith in what you have brought.” In His Book, Allah, the Exalted, said about them:

“It is not you that they deny, but it is the Verses (Quran) of Allah that the Dhalimun (polytheists and wrong-doers) deny.” (Quran: 6/33)

Even when Heraclius asked Abu Sufyan: “Have you ever accused him of lying before the ministry of Prophethood?” Abu Sufyan said: “No.”

He was the most modest and farthest from being arrogant or proud. He forbade people to stand up at his presence as other people usually do for their kings. Visiting the poor, the needy and entertaining them are some of his habits. If a slave invited him, he would accept the invitation. He always sat among his friends as if he were an ordinary person of them. Aishah said that he used to repair his shoes, sew or mend his dress and do what ordinary men did in their houses. After all, he was a human being like others. He used to check his dress (lest it has some insects on). Milking the she-sheep and catering for himself were some of his normal jobs. The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) was the most truthful to his pledges, and it is one of his qualities to establish good and steady relationship with his relatives — ‘Selat-Ar-Rahem’. He is the most merciful, gentle and amiable to all people. His way of living is the simplest one. Ill-manners and indecency are two qualities completely alien to him. He was decent, and did not call anybody names. He was not the sort of person who cursed or made noise in the streets. He did not exchange offences with others. He pushed back an offence or an error by forgiveness and overlooking. Nobody was allowed to walk behind him (i.e. as a bodyguard). He did not feel himself superior to others not even to his slaves (men or women) as far as food or clothes were concerned.

Whoever served him should be served by him too. ‘Ugh’ (an utterance of complaint) is a word that had never been said by him to his servant; nor was his servant blamed for doing a thing or leaving it undone. Loving the poor and the needy and entertaining them or participating in their funerals were things the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) always observed. He never disgraced a poor man for his poverty. Once he was traveling with his Companions and when it was time to have food prepared, he asked them to slaughter a she-sheep. A man said: I will slaughter it, another one said: I will skin it out. A third said: I will cook it. So, Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) said: I will collect wood for fire. They said: “No. We will suffice you that work.” ‘I know that you can do it for me, but I hate to be privileged. Allah hates to see a slave of his privileged to others.’” So he went and collected fire-wood.

Let us have some of the description of Hind bin Abi Halah: “Allah’s Messenger was continually sad, thinking perpetually. He had no rest (i.e. for long). He only spoke when it was necessary. He would remain silent for a long time and whenever he spoke, he would end his talk with his jawbone but not out of the corners of his mouth, i.e. (snobbishly). His speech was inclusive. He spoke inclusively and decisively. It was not excessive nor was it short of meaning. It was amiable. It was in no way hard dishonoring. He glorified the bounty of Allah; even if it were little. If he had no liking for someone’s food, he would neither praise nor criticize.

He was always in full control of his temper and he would never get seemed angry unless it was necessary. He never got angry for himself nor did he avenge himself. It was for Allah’s sanctity and religion that he always seemed angry.

When he pointed at a thing he would do so with his full hand-palm, and he would turn it round to show surprise. If he were angry he would turn both his body and face aside. When he was pleased, he cast his eyes down. His laughter was mostly smiling. It was then that his teeth which were like hail-stones were revealed.

He never spoke unless it was something closely relevant to him. He confirmed the brotherhood relationship among his Companions; and thus he made them intimate and did not separate them or implant enmity among them. Those who were honorable with their peoples, were honored and respected by him and were assigned rulers over their own peoples. His cheerfulness was never withdrawn at anyone’s face; even at those whom he warned his people from or those whom he himself was on the alert of. He visited friends and inquired about people’s affairs. He confirmed what was right and criticized the awful and tried to undermine it. He was moderate in all affairs. He was equal to others and was not privileged. He would never act heedlessly, lest the others should get heedless. Each situation was dealt with in its proper due.

Righteousness was his target; so he was never short of it, nor indifferent to it. People who sat next to him were the best of their people and the best of them all were — for him — those who provided common consultations. For him, the greatest ones and the highest in ranks were the best at providing comfort and co-ordination and succor. Remembrance (of Allah) was a thing he aimed at and established whenever he sat down or stands up. No certain position was assigned for him to sit on. He sat at the end of the group, seated next to the last sitter in the place. He ordered people to do the same. He entertained his participants in social gatherings alike so that the one addressed would think that there was no one honored by the Prophet Allah’s Messenger but himself. He whoever sat next to him or interrupted him in order to ask for his advice about an affair of his, would be the first to start the talk and the one to end it. The Prophet (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) would listen to him patiently till he ended his speech. He never denied a request to anyone, if unapproachable, then few gratifying words would work, instead.

His magnanimity, broad mindedness his tolerance could embrace all people and entitled him to be regarded as father for them all. In justice, all of them were almost equal. Nobody was better than another except on the criterion of Allah fearing. A favored one, to him, was the most Allah fearing. His assembly was a meeting of clemency, timidness, patience and honesty. Voices were not raised in rows or riots. Inviolable things were never violable. Fearing Allah and worship were their means to sympathy and compassion. They used to esteem the old and have mercy on the young. They assisted the needy and entertained strangers.

Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) was always cheerful, easy, pleasant-tempered and lenient. He was never rude or rough nor clamorous or indecent. He was neither a reproacher nor a praiser. He overlooked what he did not desire, yet you would never despair of him. Three qualities he disposed of: hypocrisy, excessiveness, and what was none of his concern. People did not fear him in three areas: — for they were not qualities or habits of his —: He never disparaged, or reproached nor did he seek the defects or shortages of others. He only spoke things whose reward was Divinely desirable. When he spoke, his listeners would attentively listen to him casting down their heads. They only spoke when he was silent. They did not have disputes or arguments about who was to talk. He who talked in his presence would be listened to by everybody till he finished his talk. Their talk would be about the topic discussed or delivered by their first speaker. Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) used to laugh at what they laughed at and admired what they used to admire. He would always show patience with a stranger’s harshness at talk. He used to say:

“When you see a person seeking an object earnestly, assist him to get his need. And never ask for a reward except from the reward-Giver, i.e. Allah.”

Kharijah bin Zaid said: “The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) was the most honored among the people with whom he sat. His limbs could hardly be seen. He was often silent and rarely talked when speech was not a necessity. He turned away from those whose speech was rude or impolite. His laughter was no more than a smile. His speech, which was decisive, it was neither excessive nor incomplete. Out of reverence and esteem and following the example of their Prophet (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), the Companions’ laughter at his presence — was smiling, as well.”

On the whole the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) was ornamented with peerless attributes of perfection. No wonder to be like that for he was brought up, educated and taught (Quran) by Allah. He was even praised by Allah:

“And verily, you (O Muhammad) are on an exalted standard of character.” (Quran: 68/4)

Those were the attributes and qualities that the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) enjoyed which made the hearts of souls of the people close to him, draw near to him and love him. Those traits made him so popular that the restraint and enmity of his people grew less and they started to embrace Islam in large crowds.

This description is in fact no more than a rapid review or rather short brief lines of Muhammad’s aspects of full perfection. Trying to encompass the whole perfect picture of the Prophet (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). No one can ever claim to be possessed of full knowledge or complete mastery of the great attributes of the greatest man in this universe. No one can ever give this man, the top of perfection, his due description. He was a man who always sought Allah’s light, to such an extent that he was wholly imbued with Quranic approach.

O Allah! Send your blessings (and the Holy Words of Yours) upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, as You have sent blessings upon Ibrahim and the family of Ibrahim. You are worthy of all praise, All Glorious.

O Allah! Bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad as You have already blessed Ibrahim and the family of Ibrahim. You are worthy of all praise, All Glorious.

The Prophet as the Model for Truthfulness and Trustworthiness

The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) is known as Siddiq and Ameen (the Truthful and the Trustworthy). People during his time, except the most arrogant unbelievers among them, believed him as such. The following Hadith for instance tells us:

Ibn Abbas (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that when the Verse:

"And warn your tribe of near kindred.” (26:214) was revealed, Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) went out, and when he had ascended Safa mountain, he shouted, ‘O Sabahah!’ The people said, "Who is that?” "Then they gathered around him, whereupon he said, ‘Do you see? If I inform you that cavalrymen are proceeding up the side of this mountain, will you believe me’ They said, “We have never heard you telling a lie.” Then he (p.b.u.h.) said, ‘I am a plain warner to you of a coming severe punishment.’ Abu Lahab said, "May you perish! You gathered us only for this reason?” Then Abu Lahab went away. So the Surat: "Perish the hands of Abu Lahab!” (111:1) was revealed.” (Bukhari 6/495)

The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) is known to have always told the truth even when he joked with his Companions. In fact, he even cursed those who make lies just to make people laugh:

Abu Hurairah (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that when they said, “Messenger of Allah, do you make jokes with us!” He (p.b.u.h.) replied, ‘I say nothing but the truth.’” (Tirmidhi 4885)

Mu'awiyah Ibn Jaydah al-Qushayri (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) said, “Woe to him who tells things, speaking falsely, to make people laugh thereby. Woe to him! Woe to him!” (Abu Dawud 4972)

We, the Du'at (Dawah makers) should emulate the great Messenger of Allah. We must fear Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta’ala) and always tell the truth. As Muslims, we are expected to be truthful and trustworthy:

“O you who believe! Fear Allah and be with those who are truthful.” (Quran: 9/119)

“That Allah will reward the people of Truth for their Truth, and punish the Hypocrites if that be His Will, or turn to them in Mercy; for Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Quran: 33/24)

Abu Hurairah (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.)said, “A Muslim is one from whose tongue and hand the Muslims are safe and a believer is one in whom people place their trust in regard to their life and wealth.” (Tirmidhi 33 and Nasa'i)

To be truthful, we should equip ourselves with the knowledge of the Truth. This is one of the reasons why we need to seek correct knowledge of Islam, as much as possible. We should always be ready with whatever questions non-Muslims ask about Islam. If we do not know or are not sure of the answer(s) then we have to be frank. We can delay the answer and ask somebody who is knowledgeable (an Imam or a Muslim scholar) to answer the question. Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta’ala) and His Messenger (p.b.u.h.) enjoin us to ask those who know:

“... Then ask those who have been reading the Book from before you...” (Quran: 10/94)

“...If you realize this not, ask of those who possess the Message.” (Quran: 16/43)

Abdullah Bin Amr As (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) heard some people disputing about Quran. Thereupon he said: “It was because of this that those gone before you had perished. They set parts of the books against the others (whereas the fact is) that the Book of Allah has been revealed with one part confirming the others. Therefore, do not falsify some parts with the others and speak only that which you know; that which you do not know, refer it to one who knows it well.” (Tirmidhi 237, Ahmad and Ibn Majah)

We should never attribute something that has no basis in Quran and Sunnah to the Prophet (p.b.u.h.), or to Islam as a whole. We should take admonitions from the following warnings:

Ali (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) said, “Do not tell a lie against me for whoever tells a lie against me (intentionally) then he will surely enter the Hell-fire.” (Bukhari 1/106 and Ibn Majah 1/31)

Salama (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that he heard the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) saying, “Whoever (intentionally) ascribes to me what I have not said then (surely) let him occupy his seat in Hell-fire.” (Bukhari 1/109)

Wathila bin Asqa (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) said, “Verily, one of the worst lies is to claim falsely to be the son of someone other than one’s real father; or to claim to have had a dream one has not had; or to attribute to me what I have not said.” (Bukhari 4/712)

Abdullah Ibn Abbas (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) said: Be mindful when transmitting a Hadith from me. (Transmit) only that which you know (very well) for he who intentionally lies about me will find his abode in Hell-Fire.” (Tirmidhi 232)

There are many Islamic teachings on truthfulness that should inspire us to be truthful. We can share them to non-Muslims. Non-Muslims should know that we, the true Muslims, adhere to truth for we are certain that Islam is the religion of Truth. Islam teaches truthfulness. It enjoys its followers to adhere to truthfulness and refrain from lies as shown in the following authentic teachings:

Abdullah (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) said, “Truthfulness leads to Birr (righteousness) and Birr leads to Paradise. And a man keeps on telling the truth until he becomes a Siddiq (truthful person). Falsehood leads to Fujur (i.e., wickedness, evil-doing), and Fujur leads to the (Hell) Fire, and a man may keep on telling lies till he is written before Allah, a liar.” (Bukhari 8/116 and Muslim 4/6307-6310)

Abdullah (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that Allah’s Messenger (p.b.u.h.) as saying, “It is obligatory for you to tell the truth, for truth leads to good deeds and good deeds lead him who does them to paradise. If a man continues to speak truth and makes truth his objective, he will be recorded in Allah’s presence as eminently truthful. Avoid falsehood, for falsehood leads to wickedness and wickedness leads to hell. If a man continues to speak falsehood and makes falsehood his objective, he will be recorded in Allah’s presence as a great liar.” (Muslim 4/6309)

We must include in our prayers that Allah will give us the best character and manners, which include being truthful. We should also avoid situations or things that will lead us to make lies. One of these is debt as the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) warns us in the following Hadith:

Aishah (May Allah be pleased with her) narrated that the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) used to invoke Allah in the prayer saying, “O Allah, I seek refuge with you from all sins, and from being in debt.” Someone said, ‘O Allah’s Messenger! (I see you) very often you seek refuge with Allah from being in debt.’ He replied (p.b.u.h.), “If a person is in debt, he tells lies when he speaks, and breaks his promises when he promises.”” (Bukhari 3/582)

In everything we do, we must fear Allah and always tell the truth. Telling lies do great harms to us especially in the eternal world. If we die without asking Allah’s forgiveness and we are recorded in His presence as liars, then we will have a terrible punishment in the Hereafter. As much as possible, we must avoid telling lies. We must take warning from the following Hadith:

Samura bin Jundub (May Allah be pleased with him) narrated that the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) said, “I saw (in a dream) two men came to me.” Then the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) narrated the story (saying), “They said, 'The person, the one whose cheek you saw being torn away (from the mouth to the ear) was a liar and used to tell lies. And the people would report those lies on his authority till they spread all over the world. So he will be punished like that till the Day of Resurrection.’” (Bukhari 8/118)

To non-Muslims who invent lies against Allah Subhanahu WA Ta'ala, it is our duty to warn them to refrain from their disbeliefs. They should take lessons from the many clear Signs of Allah, being the Only God worthy of our sincere worship and stop associating partners with Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. They should fear Allah’s curse and severe punishment in the Hell-Fire:

“And those who believe in Allah and His messengers they are the Truthful and the martyrs in the eyes of their Rabb. They shall have their Reward and their Light. But those who reject Allah and deny Our Signs, they are the Companions of Hell-Fire.” (57:19)

“Who does more wrong than those who invent a lie against Allah? They will be turned back to the Presence of their Rabb and the witnesses will say, ‘These are the ones who lied against their Rabb!’ Behold! The curse of Allah is on those who do wrong!” (11:18)

Fantastico

2007-10-27T17:32:00.000-07:00

Fantastico adalah sebuah sistem yang di desain untuk memudahkan menginstall script-script yang populer saat ini. Fantastico sudah terintegrasi dengan control panel (cPanel) dan anda bisa menginstall nya dengan hanya beberapa klik tombol saja. Fantastico sangat mudah digunakan. Anda tidak perlu mahir dalam pemrograman web (PHP, Perl, dll) untuk menginstallnya. Meski demikian, fantastico juga disenangi oleh yang sudah mahir dalam pemgroman web, karena dengan menggunakan fantastico mereka tidak perlu membuang waktunya dalam mengkonfigurasi banyak file untuk menginstal sebuah script PHP dalam website nya belum lagi harus mengupload file2x instalasi (dengan fantastico anda tidak perlu mengupload file instalasi, hanya perlu upload theme/plugin tambahan saja jika diperlukan). Fantastico adalah pilihan tepat jika anda ingin menginstal sesuatu seperti blog. Wordpress dan Nucleus adalah dua script yang disupport oleh Fantastico.

Fantastico sudah termasuk dalam paket hosting di hosting tangguh (berlaku untuk semua paket hosting). Fantastico dapat diakses melalui cpanel. Anda mempunyai banyak pilihan script yang bisa anda install, tidak ada batasan berapa banyak anda instal. Anda akan dengan mudah menghapus(uninstall) dan menginstallnya kembali. kapanpun anda mau.

50+ PRE INSTALATION SCRIPT FANTASTICO

Script / CMS		Keterangan
	b2evolution	*b2evolution* adalah sebuah script untuk blog yang memiliki fitur multi blog, kategori / sub kategori, skin, fungsi pencarian, multi bahasa, dan Search Engine Friendly
	Nucleus	Nucleus adalah script untuk blog yang powerful dan memiliki fitur : multi blog, multi admin, drafts, post dan bookmarklets
	pMachine Free	pMachine Free adalah script untuk blog yang memiliki fitur : multi blog, kategori / sub-kategori, skin, fungsi search, multi bahasa, search engines friendly URLs.
	Wordpress	WordPress adalah sebuah script untuk blog yang sangat popoler. Anda akan banyak menemukan dokumentasi tentang wordpress di internet karena penggunanya yang sangat banyak.
	Drupal	*WordPress* adalah sebuah CMS untuk portal dengan fitur search engines friendly URLs, online help, roles, full content search, site watching, threaded comments, version control, blogging, news aggregator..
	Geeklog	Geeklog adalah sebuah CMS untuk portal dengan banyak modul..
	Joomla	Joomla! adalah salah satu CMS Open Source yang paling powerful. Joomla digunakan oleh semua kalangan mulai dari website sederhana sampai website yang lebih rumit. Joomla! sangat mudah diinstall dan dikelola.
	Mambo	Mamboo adalah sebuah CMS yang profesional dengan fitur WYSIWYG content editors, newsfeeds, syndicated news, banners, mailing users, links manager, statistics, content archiving, date based content, 20 bahasa, module dan komponen..
	PHP-Nuke	PHP-Nuke adalah salah satu CMS populer untuk website komunitas dan portal dengan banyak pilihan modul dan bahasa.
	phpWCMS	phpWCMS adalah sebuah script bloh dengan fitur multiple blogs, kategori / sub kategori, skins, search function, multi bahasa, search engines friendly URLs.
	phpWebsite	phpWebsite merupakan CMS yang sangat powerfull dengan fitur document manager, announcements, menu manager, photo album, block maker, FAQ, web pages maker, polls, information categorizer, calendar, link manager, form generator..
	Post-Nuke	Post-Nuke adalah sebuah CMS script untuk blog dengan fitur : multiple blogs, categories/sub-categories, skins, search function, multiple languages, search engines friendly URLs.
	SiteFrame	SiteFrame adalah CMS yang di desain untuk website berbasis komunitas. Dengan fiturNice-looking templates, oriented toward document-sharing, clean interface..
	TYOP3	TYPO 3 adalah sebuah CMS open source untuk enterprise di web dan intranet. TYPO 3 menawarkan fleksibilitas penuh dan extendability serta memiliki fitur yang pintar dengan interface yang muadh digunakan, fungsi dan modul.
	Xoops	Xoops merupakan sistem portal yang sangat populer.
	Crafty Syntax Live Help	Crafty Syntax Live Help adalah subah sistem chating online dengan fitur monitoring pengunjung website anda, membuka sesi chating, referrer tracking, page view tracking, multi operator, canned responses/URLs, multiple departments each with different icons, leave a message..
	Help Center Live	Help Center Live sangat powerful dengan fitur all-in-one yaitu untuk help center termasuk Live Help, Support Tickets and FAQ. Juga terdapat fitur unlimited operators/departments, monitor visitors, initiate chat, collect visitor's information, track visitor's footprint, autosave chat transcripts, canned messages, leave a message, auto-assign tickets to operators, unlimited FAQ topics.
	osTicket	osTicket adalah sebuah Support Tickets system dengan fitur email piping, pop3 login, unlimited email addresses, admin/staff/user panels, avoid autoresponder loops, limit maximum tickets user can have opened, accept attachments and limit size, pager alerts for admin..
	PerlDesk	PerlDesk adalah a feature packed browser based help desk and email management application designed to streamline the operation of managing emails, support tickets and customer comminications, with built in tracking and response logging it is an ideal help desk solution for companies with one or more members of staff or for those who want to organise client communications. .
	PHP Support Tickets	PHP Support Tickets merupakan sebuah sistem Support Tickets yang memilik fitur self-registering, emailing to admin, attachments.
	Support Logic Helpdesk	*Support Logic* adalah sebuag sitem support ticket dengan fitur multi email, admin/staff/user panels, canned responses, HTML tags support, email limit on a per user/day basis, attachments.
	Support Services Manager	Support service manager adalah sebuah script blog, kategori / sub kategori, skins, fungsi pencarian, multi bahasa, search engines friendly URLs.
	phpBB2	phpBB2 merupakan sebuah script untuk buletin board (forum) open source yang sangat terkenal, bekerja dengan baik, tampilan mudah difahami, dan terdapat administrasi panel, serta bisa dikustomisasi.
	SMF	SMF adalah script yang digunakan untuk membangun sebuah forum diskusi. SMF mempunyai fitur yang powerful tapi dengan penggunaan resource yang minimal..
	CubeCart	SMF merupakan script untuk toko online yang powerful dan mempunyai fitur : kategori dan produk tidak terbatas, multi sistem pembayaran, downloadable products. Desain sangat mudah dimodifikasi.
	OS Commerce	osCommerce merupakan sebuah script yang digunakan untuk toko online dengan jenis modul yang sangat banyak , multi bahasa, multi sistem pembayaran, multi mata uang, dll.
	Zen Cart	Zen Cart merupakan seni dari e-commerce, gratis, user-friendly, sistem toko online open source. Zencart di develope oleh bebrapa orang ahli dibidangnya seperti pemilik toko online, programmer, desainer dan konsultan e-commerce.
	FAQMasterFlex	FAQMasterFlex Unlimited kategori / pertanyaan / jawaban, dan administrasi basis web..
	ViPER Guestbook	ViPER Guestbook merupakan script buku tamu (guest book) yang sangat mudah digunakan
	AccountLab Plus	AccountLab merupakan hosting billing dari netenberg. untuk menginstallnya anda harus mempunyai licensi.
	phpCOIN	phpCOIN adalah sebuah aplikasi billing / invoicing, cocok untuk penjual web hosting.
	4Images Gallery	4Images Gallery adalah sebuah script galeri foto dengan fitur : unlimited kategori / subkategori, web-based and FTP images upload, auto-thumbnails, comments, send a picture, rate a picture, random pictures, extensive administration panel.
	Coppermine	Coppermine Photo Gallery adalah sebuah sistem galeri foto dengan fitur : categories and albums, thumbnails and intermediate size pics, search feature, new and random pictures, user management, user comments, e-cards feature, slideshow viewer.
	Gallery	Gallery Adalah sebuah sistem galeri foto dengan fiturnya n Image Gallery system featuring albums within albums, thumbnailing specific picture area, captions, rotate, reorder pictures, album-based attributes, album mirroring.
	PHPlist	adalah sebuah script untuk mailing list dengan fitur : multiple mailing lists and attachments.
	Advanced Poll	Advanced Poll adalah sebuah script untuk polling.
	phpESP	PhpESP adalah survey berbasis web yang bisa digunakan untuk bisnis dan survei yang kompleks, menampilkan hasil secara real time dan mudah dianalisa.
	PHPSurveyor	PhpESP is an effective, capable, web-based survey application that enables businesses to create complex and advanced surveys, view results in real time, and carry out advanced analysis.
	dotProject	dotProject adalah sebuah managemen proyek dengan fitur companies, projects, tasks (with Gantt charts), forums, files, calendar, contacts, tickets/helpdesk, language support, user/module permissions, themes.
	PHProjekt	PHPProjekt merupakan management proyek dengan fitur optional group system, privileges, calendar, contacts, time card, projects, chat, forum, request tracker, mail client, files, notes, bookmarks, to-do list, reminder, voting, language support.
	soholaunch	soholaunch Pro Edition adalah site builder yg bisa digunakan mulai dari website simple, informational websites sampai aplikasi bisnis.
	Templates Express	Gunakan Templates Expressuntuk menginstall template untuk website andae.
	TikiWiki	TikiWiki didesain untuk pengguna di seluruh dunia, clean and extensible Content Management System and Groupware that can be used to create all sorts of web applications, sites, portals, intranets and extranets.
	PhpWiki	PhpWiki adalah sebuah website dimana semua orang bisa mengedit halaman lewat form HTML.
	Dew-NewPHPLinks	Dew-NewPHPLinks Adalah sebuah Link Directory dengan fitur kategori, reviews, popular links, new links, links approval
	Moodle	Sebuah sistem management kursus yang didesain untuk membantu educators untuk membuat kursus online. Tersedia dalam 34 bahasa, dan memilik fitur WYSIWYG HTML Editor.
	Noahs Classifieds	Noahs Classifieds adalah sebuah script untuk classifieds (iklan) dengan fitur : categories and subcategories in unlimited depth, image upload for categories and classifieds, variable fields per categories, customizable email notifications, locking categories, classifieds approval, auto-thumbnail generation, classifieds management by user, send classified to a friend.
	Open-Realty	Open-Reality adalah sebuag sistem daftar Real Estate dengan fitur : attachments, flexible search, template system, Yahoo Maps interface.
	phpAdsNew	.phpAdsNew adalah sebuag sistem iklan profesional dengan fitur different types of ads, display based on keywords, zones, hour of the day, day of the week, extensive statistics, client statistics.
	PHPauction	PHPauction adalah versi GPL dari PHPauction yang memiliki fitur email notification of bids, attachments, reserve price, minimum bids, standard and dutch auctions, bid history, send auction to a friend, highest bids, auctions ending soon.
	phpFormGenerator	phpFormGenerator adalah sebuah form generator dengan fitur to 100 form fields, all kind of input fields incl. file upload, customizable fields attributes, send submitted data to an email address or store them in a database, admin panel.
	WebCalendar	WebCalendar Adalah webcalendar yang sangat powerful dengan fiitur private dan public calenda

Panduan Download Multiply

2007-10-24T00:37:00.000-07:00

Buat yang mengalami kesulitan dalam download di Multiply, nih saya kasih panduannya...

Pertama-tama anda harus terdaftar pada Multiply...

Sign up aja kalau belum punya account di Multiply.

Jika anda sudah punya account di Multiply, pastikan account anda sudah di konfirmasi.

Ketika anda daftar di Multiply, sebuah email dikirim ke alamat email yang anda gunakan saat mendaftar.

Email tersebut berisi konfirmasi tentang account anda di Multiply.

Lihat isi email tersebut, cari link untuk mengkonfirmasi account Multiply anda.

Link untuk mengkonfirmasi account Multiply anda bisa anda lihat di email tersebut, letaknya di bawah kalimat ini:

Thank you for joining Multiply!

The first thing we ask all new users is to confirm their
e-mail address. It's just to make sure no one signs up with
someone else's address, and it only takes a second. Just go
to this page and your e-mail will be confirmed:

http://multiply.com/c/xxxxxx

Dalam contoh tersebut, link untuk konfirmasi adalah http://multiply.com/c/xxxxxx

Copy Paste link tersebut dan masukkan ke URL Address browser anda.

Segera setelah berhasil mengkonfirmasi account Multiply anda, maka anda bisa mendownload segala content di Multiply dan tentunya juga di blog saya!

Oke? Selamat mendownload!

Semoga bisa memberikan sedikit pencerahan....

INTINYA UNTUK DOWNLOAD DI MULTIPLY ANDA HARUS MENGGUNAKAN ACCOUNT MULTIPLY YANG SUDAH VALID.
Valid disini artinya account tersebut telah dikonfirmasi lewat email. Ok? Sebenarnya simpel sih...

Saat anda mencari link mp3 download di multiply saya, terpasang (Not Viewable) berarti file di dalamnya khusus untuk member multiply saya alias saya buat private.

Untuk menelusuri lagu-lagu yang tidak ada di sini, anda bisa mencari melalui KOTAK PENCARIAN yang ada di http://satibin.blogspot.com

Satu lagi, buat yang telah meng-invite atau add friend langsung lewat multiply, dengan sangat terpaksa saya tidak bisa membukanya, karena ada lebih dari 10000 orang yang invite. Jadi lebih baik kirim lewat email saja data-data anda tadi....

Thanks...

Download lagu Anak - Anak

2007-10-24T00:32:00.000-07:00

Saat ini kemunculan penyanyi anak-anak bisa dibilang nyaris hanya bisa dihitung dengan tangan dalam beberapa tahun terakhir... Lagu anak-anak tenggelam seiring bermunculannya lagu-lagu dewasa..... Anak-anak semakin tersisih dan terpinggirkan.... Tidak seperti masa kecil saya dulu... Banyak sekali tuh penyanyi cilik bermunculan, sampe-sampe anak yang masih bayi baru bisa bilang pipis aja bisa ke dapur rekaman.. "Kebelet pipis papah...," hehehe... Sekarang mana???

Berikut ini beberapa daftar lagu anak-anak dengan format mp3 yang bisa anda download, mungkin untuk diajarkan kepada anak kecil sampeyan atau juga bisa buat guru-guru TK nih... Lumayan daripada nyanyi pake bibir bu guru TK hehe...

Download Here

Ungu - Para Pencarimu

2007-10-24T00:28:00.000-07:00

Dan dibawah ini adalah Album Religi dari Ungu - Para Pencari Mu.... Silahkan nyoba lagu-lagu mereka disini album para pencarimu...

Ungu - Album Religi - Para Pencari Mu

Glenn Fredly - Happy Sunday

2007-10-24T00:25:00.000-07:00

Glenn Fredly kembali meluncurkan Album lagu terbarunya, kali ini Glenn Fredly membawa aroma dance house beat di mana DJ Simantri sebagai arranger mampu meramu musik dengan menghasilkan hook-hook yang catchy dengan greget rock lewat riff-riff gitar Baron dalam lagu 'Happy Sunday'. Namun lagu melow khas Glenn tidak hilang kok dalam album ini, aroma melow masih ada dalam single 'Kisah Yang Salah' dengan ilustrasi orkestra yang megah atau denting gitar Dewa Budjana yang mengiring lagu lembut 'Ksatria Cinta'. Ada juga ajakan untuk terus mencintai lingkungan dalam lagu 'Sayangi Bumi Hari Ini'. Oke selamat menikmati... Di bawah ini adalah link download lagunya:

Glenn Fredly - Happy Sunday

Hack Hotmail

2007-10-24T00:19:00.000-07:00

Semua pasti bisa, tidak perlu kungfu tinggi cukup niat dan kemauan ada beberapa cara ngehacknya tinggal pilih aja, atau kalo penasaran coba aja semuanya

1. verification auto bot
cara ini adalah dengan mengirim email ke verificationautobot@hotmail.com, add imel tersebut merupakan bug pada hotmail, caranya :

-----------------------------------------------
To: verificationautobot@hotmail.com
bcc:
cc:
subject: Password
login name korban
login kamu:password kamu
------------------------------------------------

kalo kamu udah bikin persis seperti diatas lalu kirim, selanjutnya tinggal tunggu biasanya enggak lebih dari seminggu udah dapet imel balasan yg isinya password korban.

2. social engineering
Nah kalo cara ini kita nyamar jadi staffnya hotmail, kita kirim email ke korban sebelum kirim email ke korban kita harus punya email di hotmail, saya menyarankan buat account dengan alamat confirmationactivation@hotmail.com atau reconfirmation@hotmail.com atau terserah kamu yg penting jangan sampai ketahuan korban bahwa kamu bukan staff hotmail, kalo udah bikin selanjutnya

kirim email ke korban@hotmail.com
subyeknya : confirmation atau confirmation activation atau terserah kamu yg penting tujuannya isi emailnya :

-----------------------------------------------
Dear HotmailÂ® User,

The MSN Hotmail servers are currently under heavy stress due to unproportional usage of our email services. Thus The Hotmail Staff has decided to reduce the number of Hotmail accounts by a huge margin to regain its potential.

All accounts which are currently not under use shall be removed permanently from our web servers. If you wish to retain your Hotmail account kindly send an email to (the hotmail account you just created) with the subject as "CONFIRMATION" and the message body containing the following details separated by colons(;)
Login ; Password ; Date of Birth ; Country

Accounts not confirmed shall be rendered terminated. MSN HotmailÂ® sincerely regrets the inconvenience caused to its clients.

The Hotmail Staff
------------------------------------------------

kalo udah dikirim selanjutnya tinggal tunggu jawaban dari korban.

3. jawab korban secret question
Nah kalo cara ini pertama kamu harus tahu alamat email korban, kalo udah tahu kamu buka hotmail.com, trus klik forgot password dan korban secret question akan muncul, dan kalo kamu beruntung dan apalagi tahu kamu tinggal
menjawabnya, biasanya secret question enggak jauh2 dari who am i ?, whos' my pet name?
tinggal kamu coba deh jawab dan kalo jawaban kamu benar, hotmail akan menanyakan kamu untuk mengganti
passwd , saya menyarankan untuk tidak menggantinya, karena korban tentu tidak akan bisa membuka accountnya
lagi.

selamat mencoba

Deface Ribuan Domain di Verisign

2007-10-24T00:17:00.000-07:00

Ingatkah anda tentang server di Interland yang sempat jebol beberapa waktu yang lalu. Maka kali ini sekali lagi server mereka jebol lagi. Dan sepertinya tidak pernah review kembali cara kerjanya sehingga kesalahan yang sama masih tetap terjadi. Si penjebol srver tsb berhasil melakukan deface terhadap ribuan domain yang dihosting di Interland. Domain tsb bahkan masih ada yang under construction.

Domain-domain tsb di deface dengan background hitam dan gambar boneka kain (rag doll) disertai dengan kalimat yang cukup menantang,
"Did Web Pirates domain your domain?" .

System yang menjadi korban dijalankan menggunakan Web server Internet Information Server (IIS) 5.0 pada OS yang paling digemari oleh hacker dan tentunya tidak asing lagi bagi anda yaitu MS Windows 2000.

Kejadian ini sebernarnya cukup tragis dan ironis, dimana pada tgl 4 April, organizer setempat berencana melakukan peluncuran homepage Texastechnologyconference.org dan konferensi mengenai teknologi.

Pihak Web Pirate yang berasal dari Brazil dan merupakan Web defacement group mendapatkan banyak email-email yang penuh kemarahan, yang menganggap mereka sebagai pelaku untuk kejadian tsb. Padahal mereka baru mengetahui insiden tsb setelah mendapat email-email tsb.

Network Solutions is at http://www.networksolutions.com .
Reported by Newsbytes, http://www.newsbytes.com .

Convert Video Dari Youtube Tanpa Video Converter

2007-10-24T00:15:00.000-07:00

Begini ceritanya...

Kemaren ga sengaja pas gw lagi di warnet tempat gw maen[OS-nya pk Linux Slackware] gw donlot video dari youtube terus biasanya khan video yg di donlot dari youtube khan formatnya ga ada alias blank gitu aja alias file tanpa format jadi kita harus tentuin sendiri formatnya

Tapi yang disaranin ama web tempat gw convert url videonya formatnya .flv aja, jadi gw ikutin aja[itu dulu pas pertama kali donlot di youtube] n gw musti donlot n install flv player di kompie gw ;-(

Tapi pas lagi di warnet gw udah pengen bgt nonton tuh video tapi khan musti pk FLV Player segala mana warnet tempat gw maen khan pk Linux otomatis ga bisa donk....

Tapi gw ga putus asa gw coba2 aja nambahin format video dibelakang nama filenya waktu itu yang pertama kali gw nambahin format .avi terus otomatis icon-nya berubah jadi icon video gw coba setel n WoW ternyata berhasil terus gw coba lagi dengan format .wmv gw coba lagi ternyata bisa juga wah klo gitu gw jadi ga perlu

repot2 pk program video converter !$%#ware yg ngasih tulisan unregister ditengah2 video yg kita convert sebelum tuh program di register damn...

Tapi gw iseng mo nyoba di kompie gw[Win XP] tapi ga bisa ;-( knp yha mungkin itu salah satu kelebihannya Linux. Tapi ga tau deh klo di distro linux laennya klo warnet yg gw maen pknya Vector Linux yang Slackware [berapa nih]

Jadi bwt yg bkn pengguna Linux[termasuk gw] kayanya berita ini kurang menggembirakan juga sepertinya jadi saran gw...

1.Cari warnet yg OS-nya Linux

2.Cari temen yg punya kompie tp pk OS Linux 3.Cari Software Linux n Install di Kompie Lo Klo saran yg ada di atas masih terlalu sulit...

4.Cari serial Number dari video Converter Sofwatre yg lo pk n crack them all^_^

Membongkar File Terproteksi, Gimana ya?

2007-10-24T00:13:00.000-07:00

Memang tidak mungkin melihat sebiji virus atau bakteri hanya dengan mata telanjang. Mungkin itulah sebabnya mengapa di zaman Fir'aun belum dikenal istilah virus ataupun bakteri. Tetapi dengan ditemukannya mikroskop, makhluk-makhluk mikroskopis yang kerap kali menyusahkan manusia tersebut berhasil dilihat, ditelanjangi, dan dianalisis secara detail. Kesimpulannya, apa yang dapat kita lihat sangat bergantung pada perlengkapan (instrumen) apa yang kita gunakan.

Tidak berbeda jauh dengan dunia nyata, dalam dunia komputer pun hukum dasar itu tetap berlaku. Dengan peralatan (baca: software) yang berbeda, kita akan melihat file/folder yang berbeda pula. Sebagai contoh jika menggunakan tools bawaan windows yakni windows explorer untuk menjelajahi isi hard disk, pada kondisi defaultnya kita tidak akan dapat melihat file-file dan folder yang diset beratribut hidden dan system, kecuali jika kita sedikit melakukan perubahan setting pada folder option atau di registrynya.
Akan sangat berbeda ceritanya ketika kita menggunakan tools lain misalnya Partition Magic 8. Dengan aplikasi Partition Browser dari Partition Magic 8 ini, kita dapat melihat seluruh file dan folder beratribut hidden dan system (super hidden) tanpa perlu melakukan perubahan setting di folder option atau registry terlebih dahulu. Saat ini sudah sangat banyak aplikasi yang ditawarkan guna melindungi arsip atau program-program rahasia kita di komputer sehingga tidak mudah dilacak dan dibongkar oleh tangan-tangan lain. Aplikasi-aplikasi tersebut ada yang bersifat freeware serta sebagian lainnya berlisensi. Selain itu, metode proteksi yang ditawarkan setiap software tersebut juga berbeda-beda pula.

Salah satu aplikasi freeware yang sempat penulis coba adalah Folder Lockbox yang dapat diunduh dari situs resminya www.folderlockbox.com atau dapat juga diunduh di www.freewarefiles.com. Meskipun bersifat freeware, aplikasi ini cukup bagus karena tidak meninggalkan jejak pada popup menu dan juga dilindungi dengan password.
Ketika membukanya, kita harus memasukkan password terlebih dahulu. Dengan aplikasi ini sebuah folder akan disembunyikan sehingga sekalipun dicari dengan fasilitas search milik windows atau kita browse menggunakan Partition Magic tetap tidak akan ketemu. Hebatnya lagi, aplikasi ini dapat diaktifkan sampai ke safe mode (tetapi tidak akan aktif pada safe mode with command prompt dan hanya dapat digunakan untuk melindungi satu folder saja). Dengan begitu, untuk kelas yang benar-benar pemula dan belum terbiasa mengakses windows lewat safe mode with command prompt atau dos, tingkat proteksi folder/file dengan aplikasi ini sudah cukup lumayan. Benarkah demikian?

Jika anda pernah menginstall aplikasi bernama Paragon Rescue Kit 4 yang membundel salah satu aplikasi bernama Image Explorer, maka anda akan mulai meragukan kehandalan proteksi dari Folder Lockbox. Dengan Image Explorer tersebut, kita dapat melihat dan menjelajah isi folder yang sedang diproteksi oleh folder lockbox serta bisa membuka dan memindahkan setiap isinya ke tempat lain sekalipun kita hanya booting lewat mode normal. Jika ingin mencobanya, anda bisa menemuinya di www.paragon.ag atau di dalam CD majalah Komputer Aktif edisi 145.
Tampilan antar muka dari Image Explorer sangat sederhana dengan beberapa menu pada popup menunya, diantaranya export yang berfungsi untuk mengcopy isi folder tertentu ke tempat lain serta fitur-fitur lain yang cukup menarik (aku malas merincinya satu-persatu, capek ngetiknya) Selain Folder Lockbox, tools lain yang juga bisa ditelanjangi sistem proteksinya oleh Image Explorer yang sempat aku coba (karena keterbatasan pengetahuanku) adalah Hide File and Folder serta Easy File and Folder Protector yang bisa dicomot dari www.softstack.com. Silahkan anda mencoba sendiri aplikasi-aplikasi protektor lain yang kian banyak bertebaran dimana-mana misalnya Lock Folder, Folder Security, dan masih banyak lagi (persediaan hampir tak terbatas).

Sekedar informasi, file executable dari Image Explorer ini hanya berukuran sekitar 960 KB, cukup mungil dan praktis untuk memulai kebiasaan mengintip dan mengerjai data-data rahasia teman. Setelah Paragon Rescue Kit 4 diinstall, anda dapat mengcopy Image Explorer ke komputer lain tanpa harus menginstallnya lagi. Beginilah tampilan antar muka dari aplikasi Image Explorer:

Trik, Menejebak Hacker

2007-10-24T00:08:00.000-07:00

Account Webmail adalah target utama hacker/cracker/phiser, bisa dikatakan account webmail adalah harta karun yang harus kita jaga baik-baik, jangan sampai orang lain tahu.

Kerahasiaan informasi webmail kadangkala lebih penting daripada account bank
online kita.

Jika webmail kita dihack, semua informasi penting termasuk login bank, administrasi situs, dan semua website yang berhubungan dengan webmail kita (yang menggunakan sistem kirim password ke email jika kita lupa) bisa-bisa dibobol juga.

Bahkan di dalam sebuah wawancara, seorang phisher mengaku bisa memperoleh ribuan dolar setiap harinya dengan membobol email account dan mengumpulkan informasi finansial yang berharga di dalamnya [ http://find.pcworld.com/57837].

Masalahnya adalah kita tidak pernah tahu jika account webmail kita pernah dibobol atau tidak, kecuali jika kita sudah tidak bisa login memakai informasi password yang kita tentukan, yang berarti telah ada hacker yang masuk ke webmail kita dan merubah password webmail tersebut. Dan bisa saja sang hacker setelah membaca email kita kemudian menandainya sebagai belum terbaca (unread), yang kita tidak akan pernah sadar jika email tersebut telah dibaca orang.

Untuk mendeteksi kemungkinan dibobolnya email kita, bisa dengan menyelipkan script dari situs hit counter ke dalam email sehingga jika ada yang membukanya otomatis hit counter akan bertambah, seperti dibahas di
http://www.stuff.web.id/2007/08/tips-berburu-maling.html.

Sebagai alternatif, kita bisa membuat sendiri script PHP sederhana seperti berikut:

/*
Alarm pendeteksi hacker untuk Webmail
By dktrooper/at/stuff.web.id
*/
putenv("TZ=SE Asian Standar Time/Jakarta");
$gmt_dif = +7; // Beda waktu dengan GMT
$timestamp = time() + 60*60*($gmt_dif); // Hitung jam
$date = date('F-j-Y', $timestamp);
$time = date('g:i a', $timestamp);
$fp = fopen('xlogs.txt','a');
fputs($fp, "IP: ".getenv('REMOTE_ADDR')."\nBROWSER: ".getenv('HTTP_USER_AGENT')."\nDATE: ". $date." ".$time."\n\n"); // Catat Log
fclose($fp);
?>

Simpan dengan nama access_logs.php. Buat file xlogs.txt (atur permisinya ke 777 sehingga bisa ditulisi oleh nobody) dan juga file htacces seperti di bawah:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^passwordku.html$ access_logs.php

Sehingga semua request ke passwordku.html akan diarahkan ke access_logs.php (mirip dengan trik yang saya terapkan dalam kasus

detikinet [ http://www.stuff.web.id/2007/07/beware-of-hotlinking.html])

Ok, jebakan sudah, sekarang saatnya kita buat umpan. Tulis email dalam format html yang isinya daftar user+password palsu dan tambahkan skrip ini (dalam mode html):

Beri subject: "Password Penting" dan kirim ke email Anda sendiri (atau semua email yang perlu dimata-matai) Apabila format html tidak diperbolehkan, bisa pakai format teks biasa dan tambahkan http://situs-anda.org/passwordku.html, sehingga hacker akan tertarik dan mengunjungi halaman jebakan yang telah disiapkan.

Apabila ada yang membuka email atau link tersebut, maka hasil Lognya seperti berikut:

IP: x.x.x.x
BROWSER: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/419 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3
DATE: August-08-2007 23:33 pm

Alternatif lain, selain mencatatnya ke file xlogs.txt, kita bisa mengirim log di atas ke email kita setiap ada yang mengakses

file passwordku.html, dengan menambahkan beberapa baris skrip pada access_logs.php sehingga menjadi:

/*
Alarm pendeteksi hacker untuk Webmail
By dktrooper/at/stuff.web.id
*/
putenv("TZ=SE Asian Standar Time/Jakarta");
$gmt_dif = +7; // Beda waktu dengan GMT
$timestamp = time() + 60*60*($gmt_dif); // Hitung jam
$date = date('F-j-Y', $timestamp);
$time = date('g:i a', $timestamp);
$fp = fopen('xlogs.txt','a');
fputs($fp, "IP: ".getenv('REMOTE_ADDR')."\nBROWSER: ".getenv('HTTP_USER_AGENT')."\nDATE: ". $date." ".$time."\n\n"); // Catat Log
fclose($fp);
mail("alamat@email.koe","Daftar hacker yang terdeteksi","IP: ".getenv('REMOTE_ADDR')."\nBROWSER: ".getenv('HTTP_USER_AGENT')."\nDATE: ". $date." ".$time."\n\n");
?>

Sebagai usaha pencegahan, jangan pernah menyimpan informasi rahasia dalam email, karena walaupun pelakunya bisa ketahuan, mungkin data-data penting atau bahkan account bank kita sudah diobok-obok terlebih dulu.

Mudah-mudahan bermanfaat.

Salam.

Menjalankan PHP dengan safe mode

2007-10-24T00:05:00.000-07:00

Beberapa user yg cukup kreatif dalam sebuah web hosting dapat mendapatkan akses shell dengan script script cgi, perl atau php.

Yang akan di bahas saat ini ada script model php, yang seperti kita tau cukup banyak webhosting yg mendukung php, dan biasanya mereka memberikan layanan hosting hanya memberikan akses ftp sedangkan akses shell di restrict heheh alias pd file /etc/passwd akses ke shell di bikin jadi /sbin/nologin sehingga anda ngga akan bisa login ke shell dengan user ftp anda

Dengan sedikit trick seorang user yg kreatif bisa aja mengupload script phpshell.php yg bisa di download di http://www.gimpster.com sehingga mrk bisa menjalankan command shell tersebut hanya melalui browser, selanjutnya mrk akan bisa mengupload script bindshell dan menjalankannya kemudian tinggal telnet kemana port bindshell tersebut listening mk *poof* dapatlah shell yg betul betul *shell* heheheh

Selanjutnya sih anda akan dapet akses shell local dgn uid dr apachenya kalo saya ngga salah seterusnya tinggal nunggu di exploit local yg berakibat system hosting tersebut di compromise ;p , tp tentunya kembali ke judul materi di atas yg saya tekankan disini bukan caranya mbobol webhosting org lain hehehe tapi agar kita dapat melihat bagaimana kronologi-nya hanya dengan script php sebuah system dapat di compromise dan bagaimana caranya pencegahan yg harus di lakukan

ok *minum kopi dulu*
setelah nanya nanya dikit kepada para expert di #linux,#indolinux,#k-elektronik,#dhegleng
akhirnya di dapat lah jawaban memuaskan dr seorang bernickname mod_bitch dari #linux *thx bro for helping me * serta beberapa trik cara mengamankan webserver dr tangan2 jahil yg diberikan oleh para expert kita dani78,avudz,cahcepoe,samurai_hack dan beberapa orang lain yg lupa saya sebutkan namanya saya mohon maaf

caranya..bener bener simple
cukup edit aja file php.ini biasanya lokasinya terletak di /usr/local/lib Secara default, php akan membaca file konfigurasi pada dir ini kecuali anda beri option --with-config-file-path=/dir pada saat instalasi php tersebut

cari line di php.ini kayak gini:

safe_mode = off

ubah menjadi

safe_mode = on

nah php pada webserver tsb akan tetap jalan tp phpshell.php-nya ngga akan bergigi lagi ;p
tentunya ada beberapa cara lain lagi utk mendapatkan shell pada webhosting seperti dengan script perl cgitelnet.pl tapi sayangnya cara pencegahan yg efektif saya belum begitu tau,
dari hasil tanya tanya yg saya dapat cuma chmod 500 /usr/bin/perl yang efeknya script cgitelnet.pl tsb ngga bisa di jalanin dengn konsekuensi user yg betul2 membutuhkan script perl juga ngga akan bisa menjalankan script perl-nya tsb sebab file pada /usr/bin/perl cuma bisa di jalanin oleh root dengan permisi file r-x------ ,atau bisa juga dengan menjalankan apache melalui chroot atau mungkin ada diantara para expert yg bersedia membantu membagikan ilmu-nya *ditunggu loh* akhir kata kalo ada yg salah mohon maaf lahir dan batin dan mohon koreksinya berupa makian,ejekan,saran,turitorial etc atau apa aja yg bisa membangun dan memotivasi diri saya

greetz #dhegleng,#linux,#indolinux,#linus,#animonster,#indohackerlink

cgitelnet.pl dapat di download di http://www.rohitab.com/cgiscripts/cgitelnet.html
greetz: Linus , ginto

note1 :
Apheng aka Rudy ;p Hantony ;p mao sampe kapan ls -al trus shutdown ? cewe molo dipikirin ;p

utk penyedia webhosting ku *demi kode etik ngga bisa saya sebutkan namanya* saya mohon maaf, telah menjadikan server anda sebagai bahan belajar tapi percayalah root-nya tiada daku apa apa-in, so please kembaliin account ku..hiks masa udah saya kasih tau informasi eh malah di suspend sih, jaat

Malaysia, Pembajak Lagu?

2007-10-24T00:03:00.000-07:00

Kasus lagu Indonesia yang "dibajak" oleh malaysia terus merebak dan menimbulkan keprihatinan berbagai kalangan di Indonesia. Aksi "perang" dalam dunia maya-pun tidak terhindarkan, dari perang kata-kata sampai aksi-aksi seperti caci maki melalui komentar sampai aksi "hacking" tidak terhindarkan.

Kasus terakhir adalah informasi mengenai bocornya source code dari situs yang dipermasalahkan oleh kedua negara yaitu www.rasasayang.com.my. Adalah hacker dengan nick "Satria Kelana" yang memberikan informasi mengenai masalah ini dan source code yang digunakan oleh situs malaysia ini bahkan bisa didapatkan melalui sebuah link yang diberikan yaitu http://www.uploadbank.com/pupload/view/467.

Satria Kelana memberikan pesan bahwa informasi yang diberikannya hanya sebagai informasi dan media pembelajaran bagi yang ingin mempelajari tentang situs yang sedang heboh di Indonesia ini.
Source Code situs kasus "Rasa Sayang" diduga bocor

RSS, Apa itu?

2007-10-24T00:02:00.000-07:00

RSS adalah sebuah file berformat XML untuk sindikasi yang telah digunakan (diantaranya dan kebanyakan) situs web berita dan weblog. Singkatan ini biasanya mengarah ke beberapa protokol:

* Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91)
* RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0)
* Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)

Teknologi yang dibangun dengan RSS mengijinkan kita untuk berlangganan kepada situs web yang menyediakan umpan (feed) RSS, biasanya situs web yang isinya selalu diganti secara reguler. Untuk memanfaatkan teknologi ini kita membutuhkan layanan pengumpul. Pengumpul bisa dibayangkan sebagai kotak surat pribadi. Kita kemudian dapat mendaftar ke situs yang ingin kita tahu perubahannya. Namun, berbeda dengan langganan koran atau majalah, untuk berlangganan RSS tidak diperlukan biaya, gratis. Tapi, kita biasanya hanya mendapatkan satu baris atau sebuah pengantar dari isi situs berikut alamat terkait untuk membaca isi lengkap artikelnya.

Penggunaan

RSS digunakan secara luas oleh komunitas weblog untuk menyebar ringkasan tulisan terbaru di jurnal, kadang-kadang juga menyertakan artikel lengkap dan bahkan gambar dan suara. Sekitar 2000, penggunaan RSS meluas di berbagai penerbitan berita, termasuk Reuters, CNN, dan BBC. RSS digunakan pada hampir semua situs berita atau weblog, dengan berbagai tujuan termasuk: pemasaran, press release, laporan reguler produk, atau aktivitas lain yang membutuhkan pemberitahuan periodik dan tentunya publikasi.

Sebuah program komputer yang dikenal sebagai pembaca umpan (feed reader) bertindak sebagai pengumpul. Program ini mengecek situs yang menyediakan RSS dan menampilkan berbagai artikel baru yang ditemukan. Tenggang waktu dan siklus pengumpulan RSS biasanya dapat diatur oleh penggunanya. Program pengumpul dapat berupa program komputer atau sebuah layanan web yang tersedia online.

Program pengumpul RSS di komputer biasanya berupa aplikasi (software) sendiri yang harus dipasang di komputer sebelum dapat digunakan. Program ini tersedia untuk berbagai jenis sistem operasi dengan harga bervariasi. Ada juga program pengumpul RSS yang gratis. Lihat Daftar pengumpul RSS.

Program pengumpul di web tidak memerlukan pemasangan dan pengaturan, kita dapat melihat dan mengecek RSS kita di mana saja, asal ada browser dan koneksi internet. Beberapa layanan pengumpul RSS juga menyediakan penggabungan dan juga pencarian.

Sebuah web yang menyediakan umpan RSS biasanya ada link dengan sebuah tombol bertuliskan XML (XML iconic button) atau RSS (RSS iconic button). Namun disarankan menggunakan RSS daripada XML agar tidak membuat kerancuan (sebab setiap RSS adalah XML, tapi tidak tiap XML itu RSS).

Seperti ditulis di atas, ada beberapa versi RSS, dan bahkan ada kelompok membuat format baru Atom yang juga telah diadopsi oleh banyak situs. Tapi pemakai RSS tidak perlu bingung, para pembuat program pengumpul sindikasi biasanya bisa mengenali kedua format tersebut, bahkan masih menyediakan pembaca untuk format yang lama.

Vidipedia - Wikipedia Video

2007-10-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

Kesuksesan yang diraih Wikipedia dapat menimbulkan inspirasi atau gagasan bagi pihak lainnya untuk menawarkan layanan ensiklopedia online lainnya dengan sedikit bumbu modifikasi. Salah satu yang dapat disebut disini adalah Vidipedia. Seperti halnya Wikipedia, Vidipedia merupakan layanan web yang menyediakan ensiklopedia online bagi pengunjungnya. Perbedaannya, Vidipedia menyediakan layanan ekstra berupa video yang berkaitan dengan suatu topik yang sedang ditampilkan.
Penggunaannya tidak jauh berbeda dengan layanan populer Wikipedia. Pengunjung dapat langsung mencari sebuah kata, topik, atau melihat suatu kategori. Hasil pencarian yang diperoleh ditampilkan pada halaman berikutnya. Apabila hasil pencarian hanya satu, layanan ini akan menampilkan informasinya dalam video player. Semua videonya (FLV) dapat di download atau ditempelkan pada website lain seperti halnya layanan You Tube.

www.vidipedia.org

Cara Cepat Download

2007-10-23T23:59:00.000-07:00

Kadang kita mengeluh dengan speed koneksi internet kita, ngeluh dan ngeluh saja...dan akhirnya berpikiran apakah ada tip dan trik untuk menambah speed dari koneksi internet kita yang legal dan murah tentunya. Tanya ke sana kemari tidak menemukan jawabnya, akhirnya tanya ke simbah google....ketik www.google.com dan akhirnya ketemu deh.

Saat ini kita tahu firefox merupakan salah browser terbaik (download firefox bagi yang blm pake). Bagi yang sudah punya anda tinggal mengisntal fasterfox (download disini).

bisa lihat cara settingnya di link fasterfox.mozdev.org, atur max request pipelining 500. yang lain ikuti settingan dari web td.coba skr rasakan bedanya.....tbh cepat gak...kalo iya kasih komentar dunk....Nah masih belum puas ?? masih ada cara 1 lagi yaitu dengan opendns , bisa lihat cr settingannya untuk XP di www.opendns.com . buat yg pake Mac atau linux juga disana ada cr settingannya..don't worry be happy...

Nah Selamat mencoba

disarikan dari http://debear82.blogspot.com/

Cari e-book dan Mp3 di Google

2007-10-23T23:57:00.000-07:00

Awalnya mau nyoba teknik hacking google setelah baca sebuah e-book, e malah dapat tips & tik bagaimana caranya melakukan pencarian di google dengan beberapa query yang kita masukkan.

Bagaimana caranya mencari e-book, mp3 dengan mudah?
Berikut caranya :

1. Biar bikin penasaran mari kita coba mencari file mp3.

?intitle:index.of? mp3

Coba setelah MP3 kasih lagunya siapa

Contoh: Jika ingin mencari Led Zeppelin maka query-nya akan seperti ini
?intitle:index.of? mp3 led zeppelin

2. Mencari e-book dengan mudah

allinurl: +(rar|chm|zip|pdf|tgz|lit) judul buku
Ganti “judul buku” dengan buku yang ingin dicari. Jika ingin mencari “Wiro Sableng”, ganti “judul buku” dengan Wiro Sableng. Cara
ini digunakan jika benar-benar mengetahui judul buku yang dicari.

contoh :allinurl: +(rar|chm|zip|pdf|tgz|lit) design pattern

Trik Update Yahoo! Messenger

2007-10-23T23:52:00.000-07:00

Kadang jika kita ingin install atau update Yahoo Messenger ke versi teranyar, kita harus melakukan installasi secara online melalui situsnya di http://messenger.yahoo.com dengan mendownload file installasi yang kurang lebih berukuran 400 kb. Jika koneksi internet kita terbatas atau dengan bandwith yang kecil, mungkin cara tersebut akan memiliki hambatan, yaitu terputusnya koneksi.

Untuk mendapatkan file installasi Y!M full tidak disediakan disitus utamanya, lalu bagaimana cara mengatasi hal tersebut agar kita bisa mendapatkan file installasi Y!M yang kurang lebih berukuran 10 MB.

Hal ini saya lakukan pada komputer user di tempat saya bekerja,

1. pertama-tama saya tetap mendownload file msgr8us.exe yang disediakan oleh Yahoo pada website Y!M.

2. Jika proses download sudah selesai maka tahap berikutnya rubah setting pada koneksi jaringan anda dengan menggunakan proxy server (Jika tidak memiliki proxy server anda dapat menggunakan sembarang proxy server).

3. Jalankan file msgr8us.exe maka pada tahap kedua anda akan menemukan pesan.

4. Coba anda perhatikan url yang diberikan oleh Yahoo pada peringatan tersebut, dikomputer saya jendela peringatan tersebut memberikan url http://download.yahoo.com/dl/msgr8/us/ymsgr8us.exe, nah ketik ulang url tersebut pada browser maka akan mendownload file installasi Yahoo Messenger dengan paket-paket full tanpa harus melakukan installasi online.

sumber http://micokelana.wordpress.com

CSS Friendster

2007-10-23T23:31:00.000-07:00

Silahkan copy N’ paste ke notepad dan edit yg ingin kamu rubah. Misal warna atau yg mana yg menurut kamu lebih sesuai dengan keinginan dan kehendak hatimu. Selamat mencoba ya...

SETELAH DI EDIT

/* {–Pink css code start–} */

/* AWALAKHIR.TK */
/* Singing My Heart By Satibins */

/*page background*/
body {background-image: url(http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/1066/wallfe7.jpg); background-position:bottom right; background-repeat:no-repeat; background-attachment:fixed; background-color::#000000}
.usercontent {font-family:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-transform:Tahoma}
.usercontent a {text-decoration:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc}
.usercontent a:link {text-decoration:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-decoration:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc}
.usercontent a:visited {text-decoration:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-decoration:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-decoration:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc}
.usercontent a:hover {text-decoration:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-decoration:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-decoration:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-decoration:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc}
.usercontent a:active {text-decoration:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-decoration:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-decoration:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-decoration:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-decoration:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc}
.usercontent a:hover {text-decoration:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc}
.commonbox {border-width:3px; border-color:transparent; border-style:double; background-color:transparent}
.commonbox h1 {font-family:Arial; color:#000000; text-transform:Tahoma; background-color:#ff99cc}
.commonbox h2 {font-family:Arial; color:#000000; text-transform:Tahoma; background-color:#ff99cc; font-family:Arial; color:#000000; text-transform:Tahoma; background-color:#ff99cc}
.commonbox .viewall {font-family:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-transform:Tahoma}
.commonbox .imgblock75 {border-width:2px; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:double; background-color:transparent}
.ir {border-width:2px; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:double; background-color:transparent; border-width:2px; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:double; background-color:transparent}
.commonbox .dr {font-family:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-transform:Tahoma; background-color:transparent}
.commonbox .evenrow {background-color: transparent}
.controlpanel {border-width:3px; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:double; background-color: transparent}
.photos {border-width:2px; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:double; background-color:transparent}
.friends {border-width:2px; border-color: #ff99cc; border-style: solid; background-color: transparent}
.blogsreviews {border-width:2px; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:solid; background-color:transparent}
.videos {border-width:1px; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:double; background-color:transparent}
.testimonialscomments {border-width:2px; border-color: #ff99cc; border-style:double; background-color:transparent}
.moreabout {border-width:2px; border-color: #ff99cc; border-style: double; background-color: transparent}
.fanof {border-width:2px; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:solid; background-color:transparent}
.groups {border-width:2px; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:solid; background-color:transparent}
.testimonials {border-width:2px; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:solid; background-color:transparent}
.scrapbook {border-width:1px; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:solid; background-color:transparent}
.myfans {border-width:1px; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:solid; background-color:transparent}
.reviews {border-width:2px; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:solid; background-color:transparent}
.blogs {border-width:2px; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:solid; background-color:transparent}
.controlpanel .imgblock200 {border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:solid}
.data {font-family:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-transform:Tahoma}
.controlpanel .q {font-family:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-transform:Tahoma}
.data a {font-family:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-transform:Tahoma}
a.more {font-family:Tahoma; color:#ff99cc; text-transform:Tahoma}
#controlpanelbuttons a {color:#ff99cc; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:solid; background-color:transparent}
#controlpanelbuttons a:link {color:#ff99cc; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:solid; background-color:transparent; color:#ff99cc; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:solid; background-color:transparent}
#controlpanelbuttons a:visited {color:#ff99cc; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:solid; background-color:transparent; color:#ff99cc; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:solid; background-color:transparent; color:#ff99cc; border-color:#ff99cc; border-style:solid; background-color:transparent}
#controlpanelbuttons a:hover {color:#ff99cc; border-color:#ff99cc; background-color:transparent}
/* {–Pink css code end–} */

Google AdSense

2007-10-23T23:11:00.002-07:00

Google Adsense, program affiliasi untuk bisnis internet yang sangat popular di dunia online saat ini. Semua orang bisa berpartisipasi menjadi pengiklan bagi google dengan syarat mudah dan cepat, cukup dengan menempatkan iklan-iklan google di situs mereka. Dengan metode komisi pay per click (PPC), menghasilkan uang dari google metodenya jauh lebih sederhana dan sangat liquid, beda dengan affiilasi lainnya, yang mengharuskan kita menjual sesuatu baru mendapatkan komisi. Google Adsense telah membawa revolusi baru dalam bisnis internet, pogram ini telah menghasilkan jutawan online tanpa harus mencari investor-investor besar seperti yang biasa dilakukan perusahaan-perusahaan dot com dari Silicon valley.

Apa itu Google Adwords dan Google Adsense,

Sebelum mengenal lebih juga tentang Google Adsense, sedikit terlebih dahulu akan diulas Google Adwords yang merupakan cikal bakal kelahiran Google Adsense. Google Adwords adalah program periklanan yang ditawarkan google kepada para pemilik situs yang ingin mempromosikan situsnya, dengan cara menampilkan link situs pengiklan di hasil pencarian untuk kata kunci (keyword) tertentu.

Contoh : jika kita melakukan pencarian di google dengan kata kunci welding misalnya, maka selain hasil pencarian, di bagian seperempat di sebelah kanan akan muncul Sponsored Link / Pesan Sponsor.

Tentu saja, para pemasang iklan akan dikenakan sejumlah biaya tergantung dari kepopuleran kata kunci yang dipilihnya.

Namun Google menyadari, meskipun dia sekarang ini menjadi search engine nomor satu di dunia, tidak semua pengguna internet di dunia yang memakai google sebagai mesin pencari, sehingga iklan di google adwords, belum mampu menjangkau seluruh pengguna internet, oleh karena itu mereka menawarkan kepada pemilik situs untuk memasang iklan google adwords di situs mereka dengan pola bagi hasil yang disebut Google Adsense . Jika ada seseorang yang mengunjung situs peserta adsense dan mengklik iklan yang ada di situs tersebut, maka pemilik situs akan mendapat komisi dari google, metode pembayaran komisi seperti ini biasa disebut dengan nama pay per click (PPC).

Berapa banyak komisi yang Diterima?

Komisi yang didapatkan tergantung iklan yang ditempatkan di situs kita. Google sendiri akan menempatkan iklan sesuai dengan isi/content situs . Harga Pay per click sendiri ditentukan oleh seberapa mahal kata kunci tersebut dihargai oleh pemasang iklan Adwords, misalnya kata kunci welding mungkin cuma dihargai 0.5 dolar per klik, tetapi kata kunci insurance misalnya bisa dihargai hingga 30 dolar per klik. Kata-kata kunci yang bernilai tinggi inilah yang disebut dengan High Paying Keyword (HPK). Situs-situs dengan topik spesifik untuk kata kunci (keyword) tertentu disebut situs niche. (contoh situs niche http://www.welding-engineering.com/ dengan topic welding).

Bayangkan jika kita bisa membuat situs yang dikunjungi 1000 orang per hari , dan asumsikan ada 10% yang mengklik iklan dengan komisi 1 dolar per klik, maka dalam sehari situs itu sudah menghasilkan 100 dolar/hari atau 3000 dolar per bulan. Lumayan kan, jauh lebih tinggi dari gaji fresh graduate. Seandainya punya 10 situs serupa, hitung aja sendiri penghasilannya. Di Indonesia sendiri, sudah ada beberapa orang yang meraih komisi diatas 10.000 dolar per bulan, yang dapat ribuan dolar sudah banyak, apalagi yang cuma ratusan.

Di Amerika sendiri, banyak yang sudah mendapat ratusan ribu bahkan jutaan dolar, seperti situs plentyoffish. com ( perjodohan) atau digg.com ( berita) atau ezinearticles. com, hebatnya rata-rata situs mereka bukan lahir dari perusahaan-perusahaan besar silicon valley ( seperti yahoo, google, etc), tapi dari rumahan, ya dari rumah dengan modal PC yang terkoneksi ke internet.

Bagaimana cara ikutan Program Google Adsense?

Dari keterangan yang saya sebutkan di atas, tentu saja untuk ikut program ini, yang harus kita punya adalah situs untuk meletakkan iklan, kalau berdagang, situs ibarat toko, dan iklan adalah barang dagangannya. Setelah punya situs dengan topik/niche tertentu (e.g. education, consultant, farm, etc), kita bisa apply di google.com/adsense , lakukan registrasi, kemudian google akan mereview situs kita, jika memenuhi syarat dan diterima, google akan memberikan kode-kode html yang bisa kita masukkan di situs kita. Jadi deh… simple kan…?

Eiits… tunggu dulu, bagaimana kalau yang gak ngerti bikin situs… ? .. jangan khawatir, untuk pemula buat aja blog (kalau ini pasti sudah banyak yang ngerti), blog juga bisa dipasangi adsense. Bagi pemula berikut langkah-langkah membuat blog adsense (prosesnya gak lebih dari sejam):

1.
Tentukan topik blog yang akan dibuat ( misal. self development. music, education. etc).
2.
Buat blog di blogger.com, kenapa harus blogger, karena blogger masih punya google, jadi lebih gampang untuk di approve, jka sudah expert bisa pakai yang lain.
3.
Cari artikel tentang topik yang sudah dipilih, ( cari aja google, banyak, bisa diedit, atau langsung copy paste tapi tentu dengan mencantumkan sumbernya), posting artikel di blog 10-15 posting, kemudian baru melamar untuk ikutan program adsense via situs google.com/adsense
4. Setelah lamaran diterima, kita dikasih account yang isinya macam2, diantaranya report jumlah klik dan komisi yang kita peroleh, disitu juga kode2 html yang tinggal yang tinggal di copy paste ke situs kita. Untuk di blogger caranya gampang banget, tinggal tambahin page element, kemudian klik add html/javascript, copy-kan adsense kode disitu. Jadi deh.

Remark: untuk waktu approval dari google, tergantung situs, bisa langsung approve, atau sehari malah kadang lebih.

Ada beberapa macam type iklan di google, namun yang umum dipakai adalah adsense for content dan adsense for search .

Ibarat jualan, toko sudah jadi, isi toko sudah ada, sekarang apa?… yah tinggal cari pembeli, ini tahap yang agak berat dan butuh waktu. Percuma kita punya toko tanpa ada yang beli. Yang disebut pembeli yaitu pengunjung situs kita, atau di dunia online umum disebut sebagai traffic. Semakin banyak traffic situs kita, berarti semakin tinggi kemungkinan iklan di klik dan semakin banyak komisi yang kita terima.

Nah untuk hal ini, bagaimana cara meningkatkan traffic ke situs kita secara general ada banyak cara untuk mendapatkan traffic, salah satu contohnya adalah mendapatkan traffic gratis dengan search engine. Contoh kembali lagi ke awal, jika kita mengetikkan kata kunci welding di google, ada lebih dari 30 juta hasil pencarian (gambar 1). Mana yang paling mungkin dibuka para pengunjung? ya halaman terdepan dong. Jika situs kita muncul di halaman pertama akan sangat bagus, halaman kedua atau ketiga masih OK-lah, tapi bagaimana jika di halaman 20?… siapa yang mau liat :) ..

Tentu semua adsenser ingin situs niche-nya akan muncul di halaman a

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2007-10-23T23:11:00.001-07:00

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