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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) 

Did your friend die the day they went a little odd? Did you bury your friend that day? How terribly sad, don’t you think, given that saying about true friendship? ‘A friend in need…’ Are friends only for the good times? For times of joy and good humour? Are friends only for agreement, for support, [...]

Instead of leaving snide remarks about departed writers in the comment fields of others’ blogs, why don’t you remember them in your du’as? Pray for their iman, their health and their wellbeing. Pray that Allah reward them for the good they put forth and for all that benefitted you, and ask that He forgives them [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]