Publisher’s Preface
In the Name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful
This is the U.S. edition of the third of eight books written so far by Yasin T. al-Jibouri, and hopefully the reader will eventually read the others as well. The first was Fast of the Month of Ramadan: Philosphy and Ahkam, and the second was his best book yet titled Allah: the Concept of God in Islam, and we pray there will be many more! Since the reader is most likely interested in knowing who the author is, we would like to state the following:
Al-Jibouri was born on August 14, 1946 in Baghdad, Iraq, and he lived most of his life in the holy city of al-Kadhimiyya (Kadhimain) where he presently is living. In 1969, he graduated from the College of Arts, Baghdad University, where he majored in English which he taught at a high school in Babylon (Hilla) then at a vocational institute in al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia, from which he flew in 1972 to the United States in order to pursue his Graduate degree which he earned in 1978.
In the Winter of 1973, he founded the Islamic Society of Georgia, Inc. and started in January of 1974 editing and publishing its newsletter Islamic Affairs which evolved from a four-page newsletter to a twelve-page bulletin, becoming the most widely circulated Shi'a publication in the United States with readers in all the 50 U.S. States and in 67 countries world-wide.
In 1975, al-Jibouri received instructions to facilitate the entry to the United States of the very first representative of the then Supreme Ayatullah Abul-Qasim al-Khoei, may Allah reward him, in North America, namely Shaikh Muhammad Sarwar of Quetta, Pakistan. Due to the sponsorship of the author, Sarwar did, indeed, arrive at the U.S. on January 25, 1976; a few days later, the Shaikh became al-Jibouri’s roommate. A few months later, the Shaikh moved from Atlanta to New York where there has been a much larger Shi'a population.
Al-Jibouri not only writes his books, but he also typesets them and often designs their covers as well. He developed a passion for computers, hardware and software, and in March of 1988, he obtained a Certificate with honours from N.R.I. of Washington, D.C., in microcomputers and microprocessors and later added to it three more Certificates in electronics and programming, including advanced programming. Putting that knowledge together, he wrote more than a hundred dBASE programs in order to accommodate his extensive and sophisticated mailing list and those of others, proving that we all ought to put modern technology at the service of Islam and Muslims.
Presently, he is working as a full-time reporter while studying to be an Oracle Developer and Database Administrator, and he hopes to spend the last years of his life designing web-sites for various Shi'a organizations throughout the world that utilize the Internet to get their message across. Indeed, the Internet is the wave of the future. It provides us with the fastest and cheapest way of communication and advertising as well as publicizing for our faith.
The author has edited and revised three English translations of the Holy Qur’an by: 1) S.V. Mir Ahmed Ali, 2) A. Yusuf Ali, and 3) M.H. Shakir. He also edited and typeset several newsletters and magazines, including Middle East Business Magazine of which he became Senior Editor. Among the other books which he edited are: Socio-Economic Justice with Particular Reference to Nahjul-Balagha by Dr. S.M. Waseem, and A Biography of Leaders of Islam by Sayyid Ali Naqi Naqwi, English translation by Dr. Sayyid Nazir Hassan Zaidi.
He also edited 14 pamphlets for the youths titled The Fourteen Infallibles which were published in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1419 A.H./1998 A.D. and which were originally written by M.N. Sultan. They are very professionally produced pamphlets that employ pictorial narratives and an easy and flowing style, and they ought to be in the possession of each and every Muslim family raising children and caring for the youths.
The Author has also translated five other books where his name as the Translator was omitted for selfish reasons; these are: 1) Best Month, Best Night; 2) The Book of Istikhara; 3)Weapon of the Prophets; 4) Miracles of the Holy Qur’an and 5) The Great Names of Allah.
So far, the list of the books which he has written includes the following titles arranged chronologically according to their completion but not necessarily the date of publication: 1) Memoirs of a Shi'a Missionary in America: Two Decades of Dawah (his auto-biography which details his experience in Islamic work in the U.S.), 2) Fast of the Month of Ramadan: Philosophy and Ahkam, 3) Mary and Jesus in Islam, 4) Allah: the Concept of God in Islam, 5) Muhammad: Prophet and Messenger of Allah, 6) The Ninety-Nine Attributes of Allah, 7) Karbala’’ and Beyond (this book), and 8) Ghadir Khumm: Where Islam was Perfected.
In 1980, when Imam Muhammad Baqir as-Sadr was martyred, al-Jibouri shifted his attention to politics, putting out several pamphlets, circulars, letters to the news media and two newsletters, Islamic Revival and Rafidain News. Islamic Revival was dedicated to the Islamic liberation movements throughout the Muslim world in general and in Iraq in particular, and it strongly supported the Islamic Revolution in Iran which was being viciously attacked and distorted by some anti-Islamic racist and hateful news media in the U.S. and throughout the West.
Al-Jibouri is a well known translator, and he is the very first person ever to translate the works of the Martyr Ayatullah Sayyid Muhammad Baqir as-Sadr, the greatest economist, philosopher, author and political figure in the modern history of Iraq, such as: A General Outlook at Rituals (which was printed in Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran, in 1979), Contemporary Man and the Social Problem (which was also published in Tehran in 1980), The General Bases of Banking in the Muslim Society (which was published in Maryland, U.S.A., in 1981), and What Do You Know About Islamic Economics? which was published by the Imamia Center of Lanham, Maryland, U.S.A., in the month of Ramadan 1410 A.H./April 1990 A.D. Al-Jibouri twice published his translation titled A General Outlook at Rituals here in the U.S., getting their latest registered with the Library of Congress of Washington, D.C.
He also translated and/or published many other titles; among them are: A Biography of Muhammad Baqir as-Sadr, The Form of Islamic Government and Wilayat al-Faqeeh, About the World Political Situation from a Muslim’s Viewpoint, and Our Faith. The latter work is written by Sayyid Muhammad Husayn al-Jalali, a famous scholar, researcher, critic and theologian presently living in Chicago, Illinois. Other works he translated are: A Biography of Imam ar-Rida (by the late Shaikh Muhammad Jawad Fadlallah, older brother of famous theologian and political leader Shaikh Muhammad-Husayn Fadlallah); this book was published in the United Kingdom, Al-Murajaat: A Shii-Sunni Dialogue (by Sharifud-Deen Sadr ad-Deen al-Masawi; this book was published in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1415 A.H./1995 A.D. and had previously been translated and published under the title The Right Path); it later was published by Ansariyan in Qum, Iran, first in 2001 then reprinted in 2005 and its fourth edition was reprinted in 2008 and is presently receiving world-wide circulation through the marketing of international booksellers in the United States and Europe, Shi'as are the Ahl as-Sunnah (by Dr. Muhammad at-Tijani as-Samawi; this book was published in New York in 1996 in New York by Vantage Press and is available for sale on the Internet from both Amazon Books and Barnes and Noble Books, and its ISBN number is: 0-533-12055-1 and the reader is strongly urged to get his/her own copy of it; its first copies were sold “like hot cakes;” therefore, Vantage Press had to reprint it a number of times till the present), and Maqtal al-Husayn by the late Abd ar-Razzaq al-Muqarram, which is the major reference utilized for the writing of this book.
Al-Jibouri has also written numerous essays and articles dealing with various themes. Most of them were published in more than one publication, whereas he circulated the others on his own throughout the U.S. and abroad. Several of his articles were published in Islamic Monitor, a fairly short-lived top quality magazine (lived for less than 3 years) which used to be published in Washington, D.C. Among such articles carried the following headings: “An Interview with Professor Fazlallah Reza” (once chancellor of the University of Tehran, Ambassador at Paris to the United Nation’s UNESCO and Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Canada), “Violation of Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia,” “Bahrain: A Shameful Human Rights Record,” “The Drug Epidemic,” and many others. Some of his political writings appeared in Echo of Islam. His other writings also appeared in Mahjubah magazine of Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran, and in Jafari Observer magazine of Bombay, India, and elsewhere.
Yasin T. al-Jibouri is discussed in detail by Prof. Larry Poston in his book Islamic Dawah in the West: Muslim Missionary Activity and the Dynamics of Conversion to Islam (New York, United States, and Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 1992; ISBN No. 0-19-507227-8). One of the essays which he wrote and circulated is an extensive, thorough and extremely well researched rebuttal to Samuel P. Huntington’s famous article “The Clash of Civilizations?” which appeared in Foreign Affairs magazine in the Summer of 1993. His rebuttal is actually a laborious research which exhausted two weeks of his time and many sleepless nights and is dated October 26, 1993.
Thanks are due to Sr. Zeinab Donati for her effort to prepare this book’s manuscript for publication. Her suggestions and input have been invaluable, and may she be richly rewarded on behalf of all those who will benefit from this book. May the Almighty assist all of us and keep our feet firm on His Right Path, Assirat al-Mustaqeem, Allahomma Aameen.
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Author: Yasin T. al-Jibouri
