Mus·lim A·cap·pel·la
–adverb, adjective Music.

• Someone adhering to the faith of Islam and without instrumental accompaniment sings songs of benefical nature that have reminders of good character, faith, hereafter, and encouragement of good deeds.
• **note; In modern usage, a cappella often refers to an all-vocal performance of any style

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I guess I can call this a follow up Spotlight to my earlier post on “Naturally Seven“. Saqib recently made a post about Muslims in A cappella. (Its funny when you read that knowing the word “A cappella” comes from Italian meaning “in the chapel”. Read up on A cappella on wikipedia to know what I mean.)

Islamtoday.com has an interesting read on Music in Islam and the opposing arguments. — Just a reminder, this is a spotlight post. Not a post for debate and discussion on fiqh issues (such posts will be deleted). If you want to know more about the issue, consult a person of knowledge. Not me, and not your friend on your gmail chat list (unless he/she happens to be a person of knowledge).

After reading Saqib’s post, I decided to check out YouTube and see what creative works I can find that have Muslims doing A cappella. The following is what I found…

786 feat. Aman | Make Dua

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Zain Bhikha feat. Dawud Wharnsby | Allah Knows

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Yusuf Islam (formally Cat Stevens) | A is for Allah

and my favorite…

Ahmed Bukhatir | Forgive Me

Forgive Me always manages to bring a lump to my throat. Its an excellent reminder of how ungreatful we tend to be, and the amazing blessings we have that we many times take for granted.

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If you can find any other creative works of Muslims in A cappella (professional or not), go ahead and post it in the comments. I’d love to see it!

There are about 6 major media conglomerates in the U.S.

(also click the thumb nailed image above)

What is a conglomerate you ask? Basically when companies merge under ownership.Some conglomerates have so much power and ownership, that their costs are drastically reduced increasing their overall profit. And think about cross promotion… when you watch the history channel why do you see a lot of ABC commercials or Lifetime commercials?

So lets take a look at some major media conglomerates today: who owns what?(i’ll only list the well known ones, but if you want to see all of what they own click the link below)

Taken from here:

DISNEY:

• ABC Radio Networks
• A&E – (37.5% Disney-owned)
• E! Entertainment Television – (34.4% Disney-owned)
• ESPN Radio
• ESPN Sportszone
• History Channel, The – (37.5% Disney-owned)
• Lifetime – (50% Disney-owned)
• Radio Disney

NEWS CORP: (Rupert Murdoch is crazy..)

• 20th Century Fox
• BSkyB
• Fox Movie Channel
• FOXNews.com
• FoxTel

Newspapers:

• The Courier-Mail
• Herald Sun
• New York Post
• Post-Courier Online
• The Sun
• The Times
• The Weekly Times

SONY CORP:

• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
• Sony Pictures

• Columbia Records
• Epic Records
• RCA Records
• RCA Victor
• Sony BMG Masterworks
• Sony BMG Music Entertainment
• Sony Music USA

TIME WARNER

• AOL Time Warner
  • AOL Instant Messenger
  • ICQ
  • Netscape
  • Winamp
• Warner Bros.
• Atlantic Records
• Rhino Records
• Warner Brothers Records
• Bay News 9
• NY1 News
• Turner Classic Movies

VIACOM

• CBS
• UPN
• Dreamworks
• Paramount Pictures
• Comedy Central
• Country Music Television (CMT)
• Noggin
• Showtime
• Spike TV
• Sundance Channel
• TV Land
• VH1
• Paramount theme parks

VIVENDI:

• Universal Studios
• Def Jam.com
• Motown Records

6 companies controlling almost all the media.. hmm

More on cross promotion later, inshaAllah.

Imagine what power YOU could have if you MASTERED the art of persuasion.

How? Amazingly, you can learn the art of persuasion just by studying from Sahih Al-Bukhari.

It’s no secret that I’m huge on dawah. After all, it is our duty as Muslims living in America. Although I don’t claim to have knowledge, alhamdulillah Allah ‘az wa jal has blessed me with avenues and opportunities to give dawah to the non-Muslim masses as well as to the Muslim women in my community.

But how do you successfully get your message across? How can you persuade people to buy your product or change their views? This goes with any medium- newspaper, television, radio, face to face, etc. This is what people in media spend hundreds and thousands of dollars trying to learn. And the most ironic part for us is that we have the best techniques in front of our eyes yet we turn to secularist for advise.

A few semesters ago, I took a Mass Comm. course at LSU about persuasion. It was one of my favorite classes. We talked about everything from the art of persuading people on an individual level to the art of persuading mass audiences.

However, that wasn’t the most interesting part of the class. In the back of my mind every technique and aspect of persuasion discussed, I could relate to the dawah of Rasool Allah Salallahu alayhi wa sallam.

So I’m currently in the process of writing a book. A book perhaps that will be one of the strongest guides to dawah today. I am in no way knowledgeable… and that is why I am going to review my book with a Sheikh inshaAllah.

First, we need to know why talking about the sunnah of persuasion is important. And more importantly, what in the world it has to do with Leechon Films:

1. Persuasion is one of the most powerful and perhaps one of the hardest things to master.

2. In mastering the sunnah of persuasion, one will be able to give dawah to Muslims and Non-Muslims in the best way possible- by following the techniques of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam.

3. You can highly appreciate why Allah chose the best of the best to convey the message of Islam. And what aspects exactly make him the best of the best, and how that relates to persuading people.

4. Leechon Films aims to inspire Muslims all over the world with it’s halal media, inshaAllah. In order to inspire people you have to learn about ethos, pathos, and logos.

5. In order to help raise people’s iman, you have to learn how to persuade them to give up the haram.

Media is a strong medium. We as Muslims living in the west realize this everyday.

And we can be that much stronger as a Muslim media outlet, because we have the truth. we Don’t persuade with deception and lying.

I’m going to start a series on persuasion – how to master it using the concepts learned in my mass comm classes, but relating them to the dawah of Rasool Allah salallahu alayhi wa sallam.For those of you interested in Islamic media, this inshaAllah will be HIGHLY beneficial bi’ithnillahi ta’ala.wallahu alem.

Stay tuned… videos and articles to come soon, inshaAllah.

They use it with deception… so why can’t you with truth? (*Mute the beginning of thevideo because it has music*) as you watch, think about Hadith or situations of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam that relate…