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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 [...]

We have come along way from my daily consumption of iViews and BBC News Online ten years ago. Yes, because today my regular online reading list includes three particular websites consistently: Engadget, Smashing Magazine and PCPro.
Gone are the days seeking the latest from the Middle East, South Asia, The War on Terror™ and Islamophobia International. [...]

A social commentator writes:
On Thursday a woman in the cloak of darkness got off the Tube train and stepped on some toes as she rushed. The looks that followed, pure hatred, and then the mutters, some from other Asians: “Stupid women, giving us all a bad name. They should send them back.” Others joined in. [...]

If you let the rot set in, it will, and it will gradually eat away at all that you have. This is the lesson that keeps on coming back to me. Last night I met a chap whose character shone beauty, as Allah wills. His manners were so appealing that at Isha the only du’a [...]

Dear Jonathan,1
I agree with Daniel Hannan about misrepresentation and the disproportionate coverage of Anjem Choudary’s gestures in the media.2
When Mr Choudary announced his plans to carry 500 empty coffins through Wootten Bassett, all our journalists were required to do was a little maths. Unless we are talking about matchbox coffins in a carrier bag, a [...]

Close to nine years ago, when I needed assistance along this path, He sent me my companion and garment, my soul-mate and friend, my ally and confident.
Four and a half years ago, when I sought guidance and truth, He sent me a teacher and advisor, learned and perceptive, positive and wise.
Two weeks ago, just as [...]

I’m not very good at making du’a, for I never really know what to ask for other than forgiveness and guidance. My wife is always exhorting me to make more supplications, for she sees me arise quickly after my prayers, her own hands still lifted towards the heavens. It may be that I am ashamed [...]

You never know which intermediary will bring you guidance. I arrived back from work at quarter to seven this evening, parking up carefully because we’ve had a scattering of snow that has since turned to ice. Closing the front door behind me, I headed straight for the kitchen to turn the boiler up and put [...]

Saving Sajdah (Sumayah Hassan, An Obscure Sanctum) 

Random quotations keep on flowing into my mind: ‘they were not wronged, but they wronged themselves’ utmost amongst them. In this tragedy that it is my life — the perpetual oscillation between right and wrong curtailing my spiritual growth — every week seems to bring a new low and senseless despair.
There came a sudden urgency [...]

It is a sentiment that several of us have noticed being repeated with increasing frequency on the world-wide-web: that the Muslim blogosphere is dying a death, that all the good blogs have disappeared, that the Muslim blogging phenomenon has run its course and all that remains is tired, uninspirational, repetitive dross.
As a so-called blogger with [...]

Often when I get to this point in the year I find myself looking back and reflecting on how quickly the past twelve months have seemed to have passed by. But this year quite the reverse is true: I’m not wondering where all the time went, but pondering how many memories seem to fill the [...]

I opened The Independent this morning to find a photograph of someone I once knew staring back at me. An entire decade has passed since we last set eyes on one another, but this article by Johann Hari brought memories flooding back. Not because his article resonated with me, mind you, but because his narrative [...]

I have a handy wee utility on my home computer called CCleaner. It seems to keep my system running nice and smoothly as it wipes away the volumes of temporary files and clutter left behind by Word, Photoshop, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Windows itself. On days like these, I wish there was a utility that [...]

The old Pakistani uncle at the mosque is due his seventy excuses too.1 People like me are often found muttering taciturn complaints about the unfriendliness we perceive in our fellow travellers when we come together for prayer. In weeks and weeks it could be as if we are not even there, as if ghosts standing [...]

Why all the killing? I really cannot comprehend it at all. A bomb planted in a Peshawar marketplace extinguishes the lives of 91 in an instant as it rips through everything in its path; 200 more are left injured. Just a matter of hours earlier 150 are slaughtered in Baghdad.
Islam holds that indiscriminate violence is [...]

I feel the need to follow up on my last post regarding adoption, as the interpretation of my words by some was not what I intended. I did not mean to suggest that we are having a particularly trying time and I am sorry if that is how it came across. It is a huge [...]

I have been reluctant over the past two years to write anything of our application to adopt, for it has felt too private and too intense. It has felt like an age since the process began: the initial disappointments when our own local authority decided not to even consider us because we had a weird [...]