Date: July 23, 2022
The Initiative on Islam and Medicine (II&M)(https://www.medicineandislam.org/overview/) located in Brookfield, Wisconsin, conducts research on Islam and Biomedicine. Their research programs are focused on the theological, social, and biomedical aspects of religion and medicine and are meant to benefit the health of American Muslims and also in the development of an academic, multidisciplinary field of Islamic Bioethics. They support and provide scholarships to healthcare providers and religious leaders and act as a platform for impactful research and tailored education. Additionally, II&M provides educational opportunities, workshops, consultations, courses and certifications, medical student internships, and hosts events that facilitate the participation of medical and social scientists, Islamic studies experts, and Islamic scholars. After extensive pilot testing and methodical curation, as claimed by II&M, they have announced the launch of a self-paced, multi-modal course named “An Introduction to the Field of Islamic Bioethics”(https://www.medicineandislam.org/bioethics-course/) This course is said to benefit Muslim clinicians, healthcare practitioners, medical students and trainees, chaplains, religious leaders, bioethicists, and patients and is based on II&M’s principles of data-driven, theologically appropriate, and research-tested intellectual resources to engage with contemporary healthcare. The course will introduce learners to: * Critical concepts in Islamic theology and law that undergird normative ethical frameworks * Scholarly discussions regarding the methods, content, and scope of Islamic bioethics and * Extant normative rulings and discursive products of applied Islamic bioethics relate to end-of-life care, organ donation, and reproductive health. This course is based on adult learning theory and is a 10-module course that runs in 4-months cohorts. It involves: * Specially curated lectures and readings that allow for active learning as participants engage with the source material of Islamic bioethics, * Summative lectures that hit on the key points from the material with added experiential commentary and explanation from a practicing clinician, clinical ethicist, health policy consultant, and scholar * Short quick-hitting reflection questions and quizzes that allow for the learning to be concretized Additionally, the course yields 16.5 CME and MOC credits for physicians. At the completion of the course, participants will be able to: * Describe the sources of Islamic morality * Identify the producers, consumers, and the discursive material of Islamic bioethics * Describe the contentions around what constitutes the "Islamic" in Islamic bioethics * Apply critical analysis skills to decipher gaps in the Islamic bioethics discourse * Delineate the major Islamic juridical views on end-of-life healthcare, organ donation, and reproductive health Register now(https://www.medicineandislam.org/bioethics-course/) for the course at II&M’s website and avail of the introductory 50% discount.
"The best of what a man leaves behind are three: a righteous child who supplicates for him, ongoing charity the reward of which reaches him, and knowledge that is acted upon after him."
Sunan Ibn Mājah
"Every day two angels come down from Heaven and one of them says, 'O Allah! Compensate every person who spends in Your Cause,' and the other (angel) says, 'O Allah! Destroy every miser.'"
Sahih Bukhari
Part I Salah (Prayer) is one of the Five Pillars in the faith of Islam and an obligatory religious duty for every Muslim. It is a physical, mental, and spiritual act of devotion that is to be performed five times every day at prescribed times. In this ritual, the believer starts stand-up, bows, prostrates themselves, and completes while sitting in the prayer platform. At the time of each posture, the believer delivers or recites certain sections, phrases and prayers. The term salah is generally translated as "prayer" but this definition is little unclear. Muslims use the words "dua" or "prayer" when mentioning to the common description of prayers which is "reverent requests made to God". Many scientific studies are done on belief and worshiping approaches. A team of scholars from Malaysia recently answered this query by learning how Muslim prayer affects alpha waves in the brain, and their results show a profound connection between mind and body. The study was completed using brain scanning technology, such as magnetic-resonance imaging and electroencephalograms (EEG), to know how the brain responds to spiritual or divine practice. Islamic prayer, or salat, needs the believer to go through more than a few distinct bodily postures while performing specific supplications. The sequence of positions is fixed, and it’s repeated many times for each act of prayer. Believers start out standing, then bow at the waist till their upper bodies are corresponding with the ground, with their hands pressed against the knees. Then, they come back to a standing posture before bowing down to the fully prostrate posture and touching the foreheads on to the ground. After bowing, believers sit up on their knees temporarily before coming back to a final bowing position. The same cycle will start again. Each of the stage in this prayer cycle will last for a few seconds, and the total prayer cycle lasts around 30 seconds and a full minute. During the study, the researchers studied brain waves at variety of postures with and without vocal prayers. To learn more into this and understand how these different postures mark brain waves, they fitted the helpers with EEG monitors around the frontal, central, temporal, parietal, and occipital regions and told the volunteers to complete a series of prayer cycle. Consequently, they found substantial increases in alpha movement in volunteers’ parietal and occipital but, amazingly, only during the bowing stage of the salat. In contrast, alpha wave stages didn’t vary much at all amid inactive state and prayer in the standing, bowing, or kneeling positions. This following study dig through the effect of Islamic prayer (salat) on a relative power (RPα) of electroencephalography (EEG) and autonomic nervous movement and the connection between them by means of spectral scrutiny of EEG and heart rate variability (HRV). !(/img/equation.png) where fmax=95 Hz, fl=8 Hz, fh=13 H During the prayer salat, a remarkable increase (p
Read MoreFasting during Ramadan is one of the five fundamental pillars of Islam and mandatory for all healthy adult Muslims to fast from sunrise to sunset for a period of a month. During fasting, Muslims are required to refrain from all intakes of food, water, beverages, smoking and from sexual intercourse. Ramadan fasting causes many physiological, biochemical, metabolic and spiritual changes in the body. Ramadan Fasting increases the Red Blood Cells (RBCs), White Blood Cells (WBCs), platelet (PLT) count, High Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (HDL-c), and decreases the blood cholesterol, triglycerides, Low Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (LDL-c) and Very Low Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (VLDL-c). Moreover, it reduces body weight, waist circumference, body mass index, body fat, blood glucose, systolic and diastolic blood pressure and anxiety levels. Furthermore, Ramadan fasting decreases the inflammation, pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1b, IL-6, tumour necrosis factor a and cancer promotion. Among healthy adults, there are no adverse effects of Ramadan fasting on the brain, heart, lung, liver, kidney, haematologic, endocrine profile and cognitive functions. Ramadan fasting is a healthy non pharmacological means for minimizing the risk factors and improving health. Although Ramadan fasting is safe for all healthy individuals, but those with various illnesses such as diabetes mellitus, coronary artery disease, renal and eye illness should consult their physicians and firmly follow the scientific recommendations.
Read MoreAsalam-o-alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatahu. Uthman bin Affan (R) reported: عَنْ عُثْمَانَ رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ عَنْ النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ قَالَ خَيْرُكُمْ مَنْ تَعَلَّمَ الْقُرْآنَ وَعَلَّمَهُ صحيح البخاري كتاب فضائل القرآن باب خيركم من تعلم القرآن و عَلَّمَهُ The Prophet, peace and blessings upon him, said: “The best of you are those who learn the Quran and teach it.” Sahih al-Bukhari 5029 https://www.alim.org/hadith/sahih-bukhari/6/ Alhamdulillah! The journey of the Alim Foundation Inc. started in early 1991 on a CD-ROM followed by its transition to the Alim.org online platform in mid-2010. Since then, the Alim Foundation has been consistently delivering authentic Islamic knowledge resources – Quran (Arabic, Translations, Tafasir), Ahadith, Islamic History, Islamic News and Articles – to the global community through its web and mobile resources. During our analysis of the incoming traffic and user demographics of our audience worldwide, we realized we could use this time to upgrade our web platform to meet the next level of usability and accessibility demands. To achieve these performance metrics, we have renovated the design, layout, and technology of this valuable resource for your benefit. We have also ported the website to a better infrastructure, while retaining all the existing Islamic Knowledge resources we have been known to provide. We have done the platform migration to make Alim.org faster and more user-friendly. In accordance to the request of many users, our new layout offers a smoother design and clean UI . All the sections in the old site – Arabic Quran, Mushaf, Quran Translations, Quran Tafasir, Ahadiths, History and News and Views – are implemented in our new and improved site. There are navigation menu items that lead to all the sections and you should be able to access your desired content within a few hours. Here are the URLs for a few regularly visited sections: Quran home page for all sections including Arabic Quran, Mushaf, Translations, and Tafsir: https://www.alim.org/quran/ Quran with translation: https://www.alim.org/quran Mushaf: https://www.alim.org/quran Asad Translation: https://www.alim.org/quran Tafsir Ibn Kathir: https://www.alim.org/quran Hadith home page: https://www.alim.org/hadith/ Sahih Bukhari: https://www.alim.org/hadith/sahih-bukhari/1/ Sahih Muslim: https://www.alim.org/hadith/sahih-muslim/1/ Islamic History home page: https://www.alim.org/history/ Khalifa Abu Bakr (RA): https://www.alim.org/history/khalifa-abu-bakr/before-and-after-conversion-to-islam Please continue to use the new alim.org(https://www.alim.org/) and as you become familiar with the new navigation. We will quickly make it easy to locate and access your desired sections, insha Allah. Please feel free to let the alim.org team know regarding any issues that you may encounter. We truly value your feedback and suggestions. The Alim Foundation is at your service to facilitate this excellent resource for you as quickly as practically possible. Additionally, the Alim team requests that you please share Alim with your family, friends, and relatives. As always, your user and financial support makes this blessed endeavor possible, inshaAllah. Stay tuned for bright things in the coming future! May Allah SWT Guide us all to attaining and spreading His Knowledge, ameen. Walaikum Asalam. The Alim Foundation, Inc.
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