Traditionalists and new believers everywhere love eschatology: it is the promise of the end times which keeps their faith alive. Whatever the Qur’an says about knowledge of the Hour being with Allah alone, the allegedly clear signs described in a multitude of others sources apparently being fulfilled before our very eyes are just too beguiling …
I don’t know if these activists and imams, with their tens of thousands of online followers, are truly serious. Everywhere, without fail, they see a grand conspiracy, ordinary men and women deprived of all agency to affect their own destiny.
It is an attack on the sanctity of our scholars, comes the inevitable rebuttal, articulated over and over. But does it never occur to these defenders of the sanctity of knowledge that these influential folk are themselves the root of this problem, having set themselves up as the high priests of our communities, pursuing vast followings online and …
This peculiar community that I find myself a vague and increasingly alienated part of teaches that when a Muslim woman raises concerns about spiritual, physical or sexual abuse on the part of influential men in our midst, it is the right and duty of every Muslim to spread the accusation far and wide that she …
As a Muslim, I do not care what the media says, but I do care what the Qur’an and our religion teaches. National laws may be silent on certain ethical matters, but our religion is not. The major sins are well codified and, furthermore, well known. This sudden redefinition of ethics in defence of a …
What message do our community leaders and activists send to the young by refusing to condemn what is wrong? And when will they ask themselves this question? Speak the truth, even against yourselves.
‘Let him without sin cast the first stone,’ they retort repeatedly, quoting that little-known Islamic ruling from St John’s Gospel, reserved for the rich and famous. Full disclosure here: I am indeed a sinner through and through, so far be it from me to judge another. I just find it a wondrous thing that the …
The hippie Muslims who embraced Islam in the 1960s and 1970s are so much more refined than us modern converts. I wonder if we will ever become chilled like them as our hairs turn white, or if we will forever remain bitter, cynical, conspiratorial and on edge. Hope there’s room in the inn for us …
For all those who liken themselves to Yusuf when the wife of al-‘Azeez tried to seduce him, it is worth pondering his retort: Joseph said, ‘My Lord! I would prefer prison to what these women are calling me to do. If You do not protect me from their treachery, I shall yield to them and do …
It is not religion that we defend, but a man. A man, we say, who defends religion, forgetting: “Whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth exalts God, and He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise. O you who have believed, why do you say what you do not do? It is most …
Our activists do not concern themselves with justice; they only deal in particularism. They consistently present only one side of the story to their followers, leading the unthinking and uninterested astray. Be objective: look at both sides, and weigh up all the evidence, and come to a decision or point of view based on the …
I do not really know anymore what this Islam is that people hold to and preach. All of a sudden sins are not sins. The teachings we always held to are no longer our teachings. It is just an identity, its moral precepts relegated to an ancient backwater, out of sight and mind. Our leaders …
We do not stand for justice, and we are exactly as those censured in the Qur’an, who took their priests and scholars as lords in place of God. And it is no wonder that we are in the state we are, because we inflict punishments on the poor and let off the rich and famous. …
Do not turn men into gods, for your true Lord will destroy all such idols.
