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The Muslim Blogger brings to you yet another set of free wordpress themes/templates that you need to be checking out.   Please note that while the developers have published these themes for free, you are responsible to look into the copyright issues.  Usually, the only requirement is that you leave the note in the footer that gives credit to the developer(s).

One reader, Aamer, asked if he could use these themes on any WordPress.  The answer is: no.  In order to use these themes or any other “extra” plugins, you need to have a self-hosted WordPress installation.  By the way, Aamer Khan is a great photographer whose work has been showcased at Muslim Matters – so be sure to check out Aamer’s blog.

The 5 themes include 3 magazine styles and two other themes that you might find interesting.

For your convenience, I am hosting the files on my own server to make the downloading easy.  This also helps in the long-run in case the files are taken down off the original sites.

And now the themes:

Studio WordPress – Download

BlackBerry Magazine – Download

Guzel Magazine – Download

Nano Magazine – Download

Outdoorsy – Download

Allrighty folks.  Take an extra minute or two to check out the other post with 15 more free and awesome themes. Does your blog have a unique look to it?  Have you recently switched to a new theme and want some feedback?

Remember to participate by commenting below – after all, if you have a blog then you are The Muslim Blogger and this is your community.  And if you haven’t had a chance yet, why not join The Muslim Blogger Facebook Group?

Pray istikhaara before changing your theme.  You never know what’s best for you.  Take advantage of this opportunity, and every other moment in your life, to purify your intentions to do everything (including blogging) for the sake of Allah (swt) and Allah (swt) alone.

I ask Allah to guide us to the straight path, to make us from those who follow the authentic Sunnah of the Prophet (saw), and to protect us from any and all innovations.  Ameen.

I placed a poll in this post to make it easy.  If you want to leave any additional comments, the comments section is down below.  Jazakumullahu Khayran to Saad Tasleem for designing it and to all the readers of The Muslim Blogger.

The old TMB logo

The new TMB logo

I follow about 30-40 blogs using Google Reader.  Among them are Engadget, Gizmodo, Write to Done, LifeHacker, and  others.  But, I also keep up-to-date with a number of Muslim blogs.

So start sharing the Muslim blogs you enjoy reading with others in the comments section.

If you want to share and promote your blog  – head over to Post Your Blog Address.

(Photo: brentdanley)

Recently, I covered the question of how often you should update your blog. That post didn’t come from some idea that I had floating in my head.  It was written based on my own personal failure to really think about and look into the topic.

In this post I want to cover 6 more points that we all need to be aware, and stay aware, of.

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1. The Title – Crafting a title is more difficult than I imagined it would be. But know this my fellow bloggers – the title is one of the most important factors in determining the success of a particular post. Usually, I come up with 3-5 titles before publishing and even then I may not be fully satisfied.  The changes won’t necessarily be major ones.  For this post, I made 3 minor changes to the title.  I’ve included them here for you to take a look at.  The changes made in each are in red.

• Things I’ve Learned Since Starting This Blog
  
• 6 Things I’ve Learned Since Starting This Blog
• 6 Things I’ve Learned Since Start The Muslim Blogger
  

2. The Intro - The first sentence, maybe first paragraph, of your blog should almost always be deleted when you’re finished. Rarely is the sentence you started with in sync with the rest of the post. As a matter of fact, I ended up deleting the first three paragraphs of this post before putting it up for you to read.

Just so you know, this isn’t necessarily something bad.  From time to time, you may find yourself so stuck on constructing a great introduction that you never get around to writing the post.  A good writer recognizes a mental/creative block and works around it.

Be sure you closely examine the intro of your post before presenting it to your readers.  And be sure to ask yourself whether your opening is actually contributing to the post.

3. The Wording - Focus on the wording later. Before you start worrying whether you communicated the idea correctly, figure out what it is you want to communicate.  Readers come to your blog to learn something.  While they do appreciate good writing and quickly frown upon the opposite – the wording of your post should not be your priority at this point.

Write your ideas down and draft your post. When you go back to edit or proofread, that’s when you start focusing on how you said it.

4. The Organization - Staying organized cannot be underestimated. This I knew and expected but what I’ve learned is that if you want to take blogging seriously then staying organized is not an option. Allowing yourself to lose control can quickly turn into a nightmare

Your readers will also know if you’re not an organized blogger.  That doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t continue to read and appreciate your work – it doesn’t mean that at all.  However, if you want to truly give back to your readers and entice new people to visit (and revisit) your blog then you have to be on top of things.

5. The Numbers – Don’t allow the numbers to affect you. Some of you might use Google Analytics, the built-in WordPress stats app, or some other method of gathering statistics about visitors to your blog. All of these are great tools that can give you a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t, the type of posts your readers are interested in, and how to maximize your ad revenue.  However, if you decide to use those then do not let the numbers become an obsession that drives your writing.  What drives you and gives you the desire to write should be the passion you have for a particular topic.

6. The Readers – Respond to your readers. Since the start of The Muslim Blogger, I’ve received multiple e-mails asking me for quick advice or to take a look at their blog and give them feedback. Others have been asking about blogging or writing in general. Whatever the case may be, be responsive.  Responding to personal e-mails from your readers is just as important as interacting with them in the comments section.

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These are a mere six lessons learned I thought would be useful to share.  Without a doubt, there will be countless more in the future.  But that’s just me.  I want to hear about you. Some of you are new to blogging and others of you have been active in the blogosphere for quite some time.

So newbies and veterans alike I ask you – what lessons have you learned since your started your blog?

(Photo: oskay)

At the beginning stage of our blogs, we tend to post updates very often. Not only are the posts that we put up at the beginning full of content and energy, but we ourselves feel great when we write them. Soon enough though, we lose that initial rush and we begin to do two things: write posts that are of lesser of quality and sometimes we even have to force ourselves to write anything at all.

I myself fell victim to this and eventually burned out. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing though. As a matter of fact, I learned a great deal from it. Today, I want to share with you what I’ve learned when it comes to how how often we should be updating our blogs.

There is no universal blogging standard as to how often you should update your blog. Let’s go through a couple of pointers that can help your blog grow – even if you just started:

There is no standard

Different blogs will update at different intervals. This point actually requires that you do some basic research. Look at some other blogs in your niche to discover how often they are updating. Remember, you are not basing your decision purely on how often other blogs post – but it is part of it.

For example, if you love technology and decide you want to enter some niche in that area, you’ll soon find out that you have to update often a lot. Technology-related blogs require up-to-date information and succeed usually on how fast information gets out. Consider blogs like Engadget or Gizmodo that do live-blogging of events like at MacWorld. Those blogs don’t just release information when it gets leaked to the press, they are also at the events writing about it as it happens.

What you need to worry about is how to develop your own style. In the meantime, one thing you have to do is…

Be consistant

The majority of blogs (such as this one) cover topics that are not time-sensitive. What I mean by that is that a post I write today can be just as relevant 5 years from now as it is when you first read it. I picked a niche that, for the most part, has information and tips that don’t “expire”.

Look at your life and see what a realistic number of posting per week is. If you are a college student who has a job, then it’s probably not a good idea to try to write a post everyday. Remember that successful bloggers can recognize their limits and then efficiently use the time that they do have.

Create a schedule

Being consistant is important, but in order to be consistant you must create a schedule. It’s not necessary that you sit down and prepare a physical schedule (although I would recommend doing that). But, you should have an idea in your own head which days you will sit down to brainstorm, write, edit, and post.

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How often you update your blog ultimately comes down to achieving a balance between what you are able to do and what you have to do to keep your blog rolling. I’m wondering how often you guys update your blogs. Have you fallen into the same hole as me – the burnout? If you have, what tips do you have for the rest of us?

(Photo:gadl)

This post is going to be hard to read, but I suggest that you read it all the way till the end. I’ll put some of the key points in bold so that you can pick some of the more important information up, but for now force yourself to get through this post. I’m not picking another Muslim’s blog to point out as the blog with the worst blog post ever. I won’t be talking about the grammar or the flow or how original the content is. Rather I wanted just to talk about the overall structure of the post. I wanted to give you just one example of a mistake a lot of bloggers make (Muslim or not). Instead of telling you what you should avoid doing, I thought I would just show you instead. It can be quite irritating when your blog post goes on and on and on and on and on. No one wants to read it. As a matter of fact, you probably wouldn’t want to read it yourself after you’ve finished writing it. So what is the problem? It’s not necessarily that your idea is bad or that your writing itself isn’t awesome. Both your idea and writing can be the best thing ever, but if it isn’t easy to read then there is no point. If you were writing in your personal diary then you can write however you like. However, when you decide that you want to write material for other people to read then you need to think about how you can make that information most easily accessible to your readers. There are a lot of things you can do to take your blog post from a “C” to an “A+”. If you’re still reading this then I congratulate you on your patience. Writing one continuous stream of thought simply won’t work in the vast majority of cases. Paragraphs should be no longer than 4-5 lines. When writing online, don’t focus on how many sentences in your paragraph – worry about how many lines it is. Readers want to be able to quickly skim a post. If they come across a post that they can’t skim then they avoid it all together. So do your absolute best to avoid writing one long, continuous paragraph. Having said that, I think the best thing for me to do now is stop.

(Photo: buggolo)

Running a blog takes a lot of work, good writing, and a good theme.  Some of the themes that come with the wordpress.com blogs are nice but they are used by millions of others.

My recommendation?  Head over to this site and you’ll find that these (free) themes are high-quality and give you a premium-like feel without the premium price.

Remember that a nice theme is not all there is to it.  Make sure that the theme you select (if any) fits the style of your blog. For example, if you have loads of content then you want to go with a magazine style theme.  If, on the other hand, you have somewhat less content then something that is more geared towards highlighting individual posts will work best for you.

Check it out and let me know what you think.  Oh yea, and before you change the theme of your blog, I recommend that you pray istikhaara and make sure that you are doing the right thing.  If you are, Allah (swt) will bless it and make it the best thing that ever happened to your blog.  If not, then Allah (swt) will give you something better.  What more could you possible want?  In case you don’t already know how, this is an excellent opportunity to learn how to pray istikhaara.

Anyhow, check out the link below and let me know what you think.

In the meantime, here is an e-mail I received about exherting ourselves during the last 10 days of Ramadan.  I ask Allah (swt) to enter this person into the highest levels of Jannah, forgive all of their sins, and provide them with the best of this life and the next.  And now, the e-mail:

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“Assalamu Alaykum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatu,

As the last ten nights are upon us, and Allah has blessed us to reach them, I thought I’d share this following article and in it are beautiful reminders, which incite us to truly take advantage of our time, be immersed in the worship of Allah ta’ala, and rush towards goodness during these last ten days. May Allah ta’ala accept our fast, our salaah, and all our good deeds, and make us of those who are engaged in increased worship in the coming days. Ameen

EXERTING ONESELF DURING THE LAST TEN DAYS OF RAMADHAAN
‘Abdullaah bin Saalih Al-Fawzaan | Ahaadeeth As-Siyaam: Ahkaam wa Adaab (pg. 133-135)

Al-Ibaanah.com

‘Aa’ishah (radyAllahau ‘anhaa) said: “When the last ten days (of Ramadaan) would come, the Prophet (sallAllaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) would spend his night in worship, wake his family (at night), exert himself and tighten his Izaar (waistcloth).” [1]

This hadeeth is proof that the last ten days of Ramadaan have a special virtue over any other (set of days), in which one should increase in obedience and acts of worship, such as prayer, making dhikr (remembrance) and reciting the Qur’aan.

‘Aa’ishah (radyAllahau ‘anhaa) has described our Prophet and role model, Muhammad (sallAllaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam), with four attributes:

1. He (sallAllaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) would “spend his night in worship”, meaning he would not sleep during it. Thus, he (sallAllaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) would remain awake throughout it in worship and he would liven his soul by spending the night in sleeplessness. This is since sleep is the brother of death. The meaning of “spend his night” is that he (sallAllaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) would spend all of it in the state of qiyaam (night prayer) and performing acts of worship that are done for the sake of Allaah, Lord of the worlds. We must remember that the last ten days of Ramadaan are fixed and numbered.

As for what has been reported concerning the forbiddance of spending the entire night in prayer, which has been mentioned in the hadeeth of ‘Abdullaah Ibn ‘Amr (radyAllahau ‘anhu) , then it is in regards to someone who does that consistently throughout every night of the year.

2. He (sallAllaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) would “wake up his family” meaning his (sallAllaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) pure wives, the Mothers of the Believers, so that they may take part in the profiting of good, the dhikr (remembrance) and the acts of worship during these blessed times.

3. He (sallAllaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) would “exert himself”, meaning he (sallAllaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) would persevere and struggle in worship, adding more to his deeds than what he had done in the first twenty days (of Ramadaan). He only did this because the night of Al-Qadr occurs during one of these (last ten) days.

4. He (sallAllaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) would “tighten his Izaar (waistcloth)” meaning he would exert himself and struggle intensely in worship. It is also said that it means he (sallAllaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) would withdraw from women. This seems to be more correct since it inclines with what was mentioned previously and with the hadeeth of Anas (radyAllahau ‘anhu): “He (sallAllaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) would rollup his bed and withdraw from women (i.e. his wives).” [2]

Also, he (sallAllaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) would observe ‘Itikaaf in the last ten days of Ramadaan and the person who is in the state of ‘Itikaaf is restricted from interacting (sexually) with women.

So, O Muslim brother, strive to characterize yourself with these attributes. And guard the prayer you make in the depths of the night (tahajjud) with the Imaam in addition to the Taraaweeh prayer (which is prayed in the early parts of the night), so that your exertion in these last ten days may go beyond that of the first twenty. And so that you may achieve the attribute of “spending the night in worship” by praying.

And you must be patient in your obedience to Allaah, for indeed, the tahajjud (night) prayer is difficult, but its reward is great. By Allaah, it is a great opportunity in ones life and a profitable thing to take advantage of, for the one whom Allaah grants it to. And a person does not know if perhaps he will encounter one of Allaah’s many rewards during the night prayer, thus serving as assistance for him in this world and in the Hereafter.

The righteous predecessors of this ummah would lengthen the prayer at night, exerting themselves. As-Saa’ib Ibn Yazeed said: “‘Umar Ibn Al-Khattaab ordered Ubay Bin Ka’ab and Tameem Ad-Daaree to lead the people in prayer with eleven raka’aat. The reciter would recite one hundred verses, to the point that we had to lean upon wooden staffs due to the long standing. And we would not stop until the early parts of Fajr.” [3]

‘Abdullaah Ibn Abee Bakr reported: “I heard my father (i.e. Abu Bakr) say: ‘During Ramadaan, we would finish (the night prayer) late and we would hurry the servants to present the food (of suhoor) for fear that Fajr (morning) would come upon us.” [4]

There are two struggles of the soul that the believer faces during Ramadaan: the struggle by day with fasting and the struggle by night with qiyaam (night prayer). So whosoever combines these two and fulfills their rights, then he is amongst the patient — those who will “be given their reward in full without any reckoning.” [5]

These ten days are the last part of the month and a person’s actions are based on his last ones. So perhaps, he will encounter the night of Al-Qadr, while standing in prayer for Allaah and thus have all his past sins forgiven.

And one must incite, animate and persuade his family to perform acts of worship, especially in these great times in which no one neglects it except that he has been deprived. What is more incredible than this is that while the people are performing prayer and making tahajjud, some individuals spend their time in forbidden gatherings and sinful events. This is indeed the greatest loss. We ask Allaah for his protection.

Therefore, embarking on these last days means entering into the profiting from righteous deeds in what remains of the month. From the unfortunate matters is to see that some people excel in righteous actions, such as prayer and recitation of the Qur’aan, in the first part of the month, but then signs of fatigue and weariness begin to show on them afterwards, especially when the last ten days of Ramadaan come in. And this is in spite of these last ten days possessing a greater standing than the first ones. Thus, one must persevere in striving and struggling and increase his worship when the end of the month draws near. And we must keep in mind that a person’s actions are based on his last ones.

Footnotes:

[1] Al-Bukhaaree (4/269) and Muslim (1174)

[2] See Lataa’if-ul-Ma’aarif: pg. 219

[3] See Al-Muwatta (Eng. Dar El-Fiker): vol. 1, pg 154

[4] Also in the Muwatta of Imaam Maalik: vol. 1, pg. 156

[5] Surah Az-Zumar: 15

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Whoever prays with the Imaam until he finishes, it is recorded for him that he prayed the entire night

Reported by Abu Dawood (no.1375) and At-Tirmidhee (no. 1806) and authenticated by Al-Albaanee”

(Photo: radiant guy)

Did you know you could filter out certain AdSense ads from appearing on your blog or website?

AdSense has a feature called “Competitive Ad Filter”.  It has been around for a while, but is one that is not often used.  Originally, this was designed so that you can filter out businesses and services that compete with whatever it is you’re offering.  However, as Muslims we can use this feature to filter out sites that we should not be advertising for.

The majority of Muslim blogs tend to have advertisements for dating or matrimonial services.  This is not something done randomly.  Businesses pay money to advertise their services on sites with certain keywords such as “Muslim”.  Some of these may in fact be legit, but my guess would be that most are either haram or, at the very least, questionable.

When it comes to dating sites, here’s what I did to find potential problems:

1.    Google “Muslim dating”
2.    Copy all the links of businesses that advertise
3.    Paste them into the Ad Filter in AdSense

Remember that it is against Google’s Terms of Service that you click your own ads for any reason at all.  So if the site’s address isn’t listed in the ad, then you’ll need to use Google for more information.

Of course, new sites will always be popping up — so you really have to stay on top of things.  If you are willing to go through this process once in a while, then I recommend you go ahead and use AdSense.  For example, I know that this post includes words such as “dating”.  So for quite some time I will be monitoring the ads that are displayed so that I can add them to the list.

On the other hand, if filtering ads is something you just don’t want to deal with then I highly recommend you stay away from advertising.  Why?  Because the last thing you want is to earn money from haram sources.

Do you really want to earn even one penny from someone who clicks on some dating site that advocates haram methods for establishing a relationship?  I hope not.

I’ve compiled a list of sites that you can just copy and paste into the “Competitive Ad Filter”.   Click the icon below to download the file with the list of sites I’ve found questionable so far.  There is also a short tutorial video showing you how to find, search for, and filter site that may be questionable or haram.

Let me know where you stand on the issue of AdSense and targeted ads.  Do you use AdSense on your site?  If so, have you had a chance to look at the type of ads being displayed?  Did you already know about (and use) the “Competitive Ad Filter” feature before reading this post?

(Photo: cgfan)