You can honour and respect a man who served his country well, without granting him absolute power. Historical parallels indicate that moves to consolidate power in the hands of one man will end in disaster. But who can argue with the bombastic masses, dreaming of a return to imagined glory? Legends are being written before …
Another nationwide tour of celebrity scholars? I think I’ll give it a miss. Too many at these events behave like off-balance teenage girls worshipping their boy-band pop idol. Except the adoring fans are mostly bearded men in thobes, and the boy-band, middle-aged male academics (yes, the organisers forgot to invite female scholars again).
Sobbing scholars, emotional backing tracks, synthetic echoes… I detest all of these manipulative means to convey a message.
It is occasionally worth recalling that the concept of “terror bombing” was not dreamed up in a cave in Afghanistan, but by a celebrated British statesman, who legitimised the mass killing of civilians as a means to defeat the enemy (37,000 in Hamburg and 25,000 in Dresden). Collective amnesia forces us to wash our hands …
Best to be very sceptical of the claims of those who cling to power.
I think we are defined more by our politics than by our religion.
Years ago, when I had just become Muslim, I was invited by a friend to spend an evening smoking fruit-flavoured tobacco from a shisha pipe. When I declined, suggesting that it was not a good way for a Muslim to spend his time, my companion responded that we would adopt my puritanical stance when the …
So once more our activists and scholars petition us, “Why are you silent? Why do you not speak out?” And yes, it is true, we feel like renegades, as if indifferent to the suffering of afflicted innocents everywhere. But the communal amnesia they demand of us won’t stick. We have been browbeaten by tragedy before, …
They demand that you speak up, say something, make your voice heard, as if everything is clearcut and obvious and true, and as though your voice would make a difference to the wronged, caught in the crossfire of conflict. Perhaps the silent fear opening the door to another giant invasion from outside, sold as a …
Hey! Read my longwinded message which proves that such and such is HARAM!! Here is a verse from the Qur’an to prove it! Now you may say that this verse has absolutely nothing to do with such and such. However, the SCHOLARS say that the meaning of XYZ is such and such, and since you’re …
I used to be extremely timid in company. These days I find myself accidentally challenging people when they start making sweeping generalisations and outlandish claims. I don’t mean to be contrary. But really, someone needs to be the dissenting voice, offering an alternative perspective. Even if everyone thinks that the dissenting one is an idiot as …
It’s heartening that there are people in modern times who dedicate their time to checking facts. Tracing claims to their source, mapping the path of the information as it spread worldwide. Investigating the contents of the claims. They are the modern inheritors of the sciences of isnad and matn. But it is disheartening that they …
This week’s European court of justice ruling to allow the hijab to be banned in the workplace has drawn yet another line in the sand. It is time to move from Europe opine Muslim commentators everywhere; time to flee the coming catastrophe. Muslims should return to their Muslim lands, we are told, to remove themselves …
Come on dear celebrity community leader, think about your words! Yes, of course what really matters is our relationship with our Lord. Yes, of course we are not defined by qualifications and what we own. But the generations of dropouts, layabouts and underachievers desperately need their spiritual guides to tell them that their GCSEs, A-Levels, …
On this day, every year without fail, in commemoration of the dissolution of the Ottoman Caliphate, a curious quotation misattributed to then Foreign Secretary George Curzon is regurgitated all over social media by people who should, by now, know better: “The situation now is that the Islamic Caliphate in Turkey is dead and will never …
