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Alhamdulilah for companionship, friends, smiles and felt-tip pens. Alhamdulilah for a child’s eye, for a mentor’s advice, for helping hands. Alhamdulilah for a lifetime to approach Him.

A few weeks ago I noticed a strange pulsating feeling in my abdomen. It was not painful, nor was it uncomfortable, so quite naturally I ignored it. On the fourth day, however, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to look my symptoms up, just in case.
Well it could be this, or it [...]

As a Christian, I was brought up on that saying attributed to Isa — peace be upon — that the greatest commandment of the Law was to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind, and that next was to love our neighbour as [...]

There was an interesting piece on Radio 4’s Open Book yesterday on how a listener who had found it difficult to concentrate on reading since bereavement fifteen years ago could get back into the habit. There is an organisation based in Liverpool which aims to help people like this achieve this very goal and its [...]

It is better to be reproached and held to account in this world, and for it to be a driver for reform, than to wait until the Hour. Alhamdulilah in all circumstances, as my wife would say.

If you want to measure the extent of your reliance on God, check your response to a friend’s reproach. It is easy to moisten one’s tongue with ‘Allah is enough for me.‘ But when the deep depression descends upon receipt of unwanted words, it becomes apparent that there is a gap between one’s desired state [...]

To think well of Muslims is to regard nothing they do or say as evil when it can be interpreted otherwise. If you cannot find a good interpretation, in the case of sins, for example, then reproach them for committing them, and believe that their faith will eventually drive them to refrain and repent [...]

The generosity of Allah knows no bounds. This lunchtime, inbetween prayers at the masjid, I was found pondering upon my sins. However would He forgive me, I asked myself, their memory fleeting in and out of my mind. I reminded myself that God’s mercy is not like human mercy; that while man might weigh the [...]

Last night I had a drifting sleep. Not really sleeping, not really awake, shifting in and out of consciousness all through the night. When sleep took me, there were dreams, but I only recall two of them now. In the first I watched as the Americans launched a cruise missile on one of their own [...]

Friends are allowed to have blue moments, brief falling-outs, disagreements and the odd depression. Because a friend shouts at me, or takes issue with something I say, it doesn’t mean the friendship’s through. But even it was and we were suddenly enemies to one another, it would not change God’s sacred law. Back-biting is still [...]

Whoever could conceive it? These ancient Armenian Muslims sitting in my kitchen, eating hamsi and tushu, in the Chiltern hills. The universes that open up before us continually amaze me. Whatever next, I wonder?

A new day dawns and suddenly I find myself incredibly grateful. Grateful that I acted a fool and received my dressing down. Grateful that I felt that pang of pain in my heart when I read the respondent’s words and realised what I had done. Grateful that He humbled me and reminded me of my [...]

Reflecting on today, and my life in general, it is true what they say: I suffer from foot in mouth syndrome. I have the uncanny ability to irritate people incredibly powerfully. There was the whole iPhone saga a year ago where I stuck my oar in, suggesting money could be better spent. Fortunately I have [...]

How sad it is that this soul so quickly falls unconscious, forgetting that it will be held to account for everything. How can one so suddenly become so heedless, shooting off like that, uncaring of the consequences? How can one’s faith be so minute — like the mustard seed of the parables of a churchgoing [...]

How easily we plant the seed of enmity in our hearts, fostering contempt of our own brothers, and how quickly it grows into a tree bearing bitter fruit. Most days I receive an email from across the Atlantic ocean reminding me of higher wisdom. The last one I read imparted these gems:
Wise Quote of the [...]

This evening, my good friend, Rashid ibn Jeffrey of Hounslow, coined a new phrase to replace the tired out names given to those who embrace Islam later in life, such as converts, reverts and new Muslims.
He proposed, and I accepted, ‘the dekafirnated tribes’. So overjoyed was I by this innovation that I agreed to use [...]

I feel sorry for my brethren of South Asian descent. For when it comes to the English, they cannot win. As non-Muslims, the English attack them for colonising this green and pleasant land with mosques — for taking over and making Britain Islamic. Yet as soon as an Englishman embraces the deen, he is all [...]

In her rage at Tony Blair on Friday as he sat before the Chilcot Inquiry she accidentally dashed over a goblet of red wine. To his crimes of forging war and invading a sovereign state, she added the painful stains on the beautiful wooden floor. Thus acts the modern Muslim, scared to take the self [...]