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May God preserve us from fame, celebrity and great acclaim. May He protect us from the attention-seeking ego, from the lust for admiration, from inflated self-regard. If one day we should state our intention to head for the hills and disappear, may our words be true. Let not the lusts of the narcissistic self drive [...]

Alhamdulilah for that winter’s day I acted a fool and received my dressing down. Alhamdulilah for that pang of pain in my heart that followed when I read the respondent’s words and realised what I had done. Alhamdulilah for my Lord’s humbling me that day, reminding me of my lowliness. Alhamdulilah for the reminder that [...]

What do people think of when they hear the words of Surah al-Ankabut, ‘Do the people think that they will be left to say, “We believe” and will not be tested?’ Does it conjure up pictures of war, famine, abject poverty, homelessness and flooding? Do we imagine the shaking of the earth, columns of refugees [...]

Who sits this side of the computer terminal, tapping out words that shoot out across the web? Nobody knows. Nobody knows if the author is a believer or a doubter, the pious or a sinner, the learned or the ignorant, a guide, the guided, the misguided or a misguider. Nobody knows if the author is [...]

Hold fast to the rope of Allah and never take your faith for granted. These are not empty words. I have passed through those phases of great despair — despair at my own propensity to overwhelm myself with the same sins over and over — when a voice from within whispers, “There is no hope [...]

Last night on our return from an adoption seminar in London we dropped into West Ealing mosque to perform Maghrib before our not-too-long journey back to our green and pleasant valley out west. As I stood within in the midst of that diverse tribe — a mini united nations — I found myself thinking this: [...]

Two or three years ago in one very insignificant corner of the internet, a huge argument broke out between proponents of vaguely different interpretations of Islam, between brothers if you will. To the casual observer, such as myself peering in, it seemed like a skirmish on the border. But its effect on others was catastrophic. [...]

During the last football World Cup, my wife and I were invited to attend a small gathering hosted by some friends in their home. Although we knew them to be Shia Muslims (Shi’atu Ali), we quite gladly accepted their invitation so as not to break their hearts. So it was that we found ourselves in [...]

The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline is a proposed natural gas pipeline being developed by the Asian Development Bank. If the project is successful, the pipeline will transport Caspian Sea natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan and then to India. The 1,040 mile pipeline will run from Turkmenistan’s Dauletabad gas field to Afghanistan. From there it [...]

As sections of the media and governments worldwide congratulate themselves for telling Israel off for shooting civilians on the Mavi Maramara earlier this week, I am struck by the absolute lack of outrage at that hideous by-product of America’s robotic assassinations: the incidental deaths of women and children. In the course of the war on [...]