I hope all of our Jewish brothers and sisters had a Tzom Kal on the occasion of Yawm-ul-Kippur. A good friend of mine taught me a long time ago that the traditional Yom Kippur greeting is Gmar Hatimah Tovah or May you be guaranteed for a good year. Ameen/Amein! This tradition is very similar to our very own Islamic tradition of Laylat-ul-Qadr (the Night of Power and Predestination) when the following years fate/destiny is supposedly determined and sealed. It is also striking that both of our people celebrated the Day of Atonement on the same day this year, signifying that we have more in common with one another than we are led to believe. Glory be to God!! I wanted to share with you all a trailer for Hollywoods next big-screen adaptation of the life of Prophet Moses (Musa - peace be upon him) coming out this December, starring Christian Bale as Moses and directed by Ridley Scott. As many of you know, Moses is one of the most revered and beloved prophets in Islam and it is said in Muslim tradition that when the two met on the Prophets Night Journey to Heaven, Moses stopped Muhammad several times on his way back from an audience with God, advising him that the number of daily prayers prescribed by God should be drastically reduced from 50 to just a few. As everyone knows, eventually it was settled on just 5 daily prayers but Moses (as wise as he was) warned Muhammad that even five was too much for his people. Truer words were never spoken - it turns out that the majority of the Muslim world have a hard time praying five times a day!! In the words of Moses: Muhammad, Ive lived with the people for many years and trust me when I tell you that asking them to do five daily prayers can be a hardship for them. Go back to the Lord and ask him to reduce it even further. To which the Prophet sheepishly replied, Ive already haggled with Him to reduce it from 50 to 5 upon your continuing insistence. Im ashamed to ask him to reduce it even more. To which Moses replied: Very well then. May the Lord give your people the strength and the guidance to do so. So, to sum it up, we Muslims are actually very grateful to Prophet Moses for keeping our number of daily prayers down to a seemingly manageable level! Can u imagine us praying 50 times a day?!? :) Heres the trailer for the new movie based on the Book of Exodus. The film was originally called simply Exodus, but it later received the subtitle Gods and Kings because 20th Century Fox could not procure the rights for Exodus alone from MGM, who owns the rights through the unrelated film Exodus (1960), starring Paul Newman. If anyone from the Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities are interested in seeing this biblical movie with me, Id love to get an inter-faith group together: youtu.be/t-8YsulfxVI In an interesting interview with Esquire magazine, director Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Alien, Blade Runner, etc.) called religion the biggest source of evil, explaining, Everyone is tearing each other apart in the name of their personal god. And the irony is, by definition, theyre probably worshiping the same god. In another interview, Scott claimed that being an atheist was a good quality for directing a Biblical story because Ive got to convince myself the story works.
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 21:17:36 +0000
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