Shaykh Hisham Kabbani has just completed a major tour of the Southeast Asian that spanned three weeks and three nations. Accompanied by his wife Hajjah Naziha Adil and daughter Sajeda, as well as a contingent of staff, the trip's main highlight was a gathering in Central Java's city of Jepara, attended by Indonesian government ministers and scholars from the Ministry of Religious Affairs. This event, held in the town's central park, was attended by over 200,00 participants. The event was highlighted by Shaykh Kabbani giving the keynote address in which he spoke on the importance of spirituality in Islam, and emphasized the need to leave extremism and violence.
In this island nation which comprises the largest Muslim population in the world, such visits by a luminary like Shaykh Kabbani are essential in fighting the war on terrorism. Shaykh Kabbani is renowned in Indonesia for his qualifications as both as a traditionalist scholar and Sufi master giving him a recognition among both the common people as well as the leaders and scholars. In his last visit to the country, the President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono publicly announced at the Grand Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, before an audience of 250,000 attendees, that he was a student of Shaykh Kabbani.
To see full coverage of this tour, click here.
Evil has been a problem for mankind since the advent of the first humans on earth. Cain killed his own brother, Abel, so that his ritual sacrifice might seem more worthy in the eyes of Allah — proof that the outward forms of religiosity are not sufficient to check the negative traits of the lower self. More is required to purify the self from these evil impulses. Abel had developed this quality, as evidenced by his refusal to harm his brother even when faced with the threat of death. His was the state of purified spiritual character. That character is not developed in a vacuum, but requires a focused discipline to achieve. It is a discipline that was developed and refined by subsequent generations into a systematic path of self-analysis and self-correction that became known as the “Science of the Self,” or Sufism.
(Saturday, June 5, 2010) Pope Benedict XVI meets with Sufi mystic Sheikh Nazim (L), who traveled from the north of the divided island of Cyprus to see him at the Latin Church of the Holy Cross in Nicosia on Saturday.
In his second trip to Southeast Asia this year, ISCA Chairman Shaykh Hisham Kabbani visited four nations in the span of one month, where he led many public gatherings and spoke on the importance of traditional Islamic principles. Beginning the tour in Singapore, the renowned leader led a large congregational prayer at the Habib Nuh mosque, and spoke at a few other gatherings in the country before departing for Malaysia, where prominent Malays hosted him and ISCA staff for several large gatherings. From Malaysia, the group travelled to Australia where Shaykh Kabbani spoke on interfaith relations and spirituality at a well-attended event at the Theosophical Society of Melbourne.