How many have been driven away from the truth by sectarianism? May the One guide those same souls back to the truth once they have overcome their traumas or whatever it is that has taken them away.
So the irony. I may have been inspired and guided by the way you carried yourself: by a smile, the appearance of modesty, the appearance of humility, a kindness imagined. For I always believed we are as we appear. “Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others’ faults. …
Our activist friends this morning are sharing Yasir Qadir’s talk at Cambridge Central Mosque, lauding his insightful observations on the clash of ideas taking place in western civilisation. Actually, I was already aware of the talk, for I had seen it appear in my YouTube subscriptions at the weekend, but I passed over it, for …
So Folio seems to be one of the last surviving Muslamic layman’s blogs of the interwebs, somehow surviving the advent of social media. That does not mean it has any readers (7 readers a week on average, so not quite Dead Parrot sketch, but close), but yes, it remains active, as I witter away, mostly …
I don’t trust myself, even less others. I never trust my own motives, always interrogating myself as to what lies behind my intentions. I am a man. I know both the darkness and the light within. I know that I could do great evil if I let my guard down. I know I could do …
Don’t be blind to what is obvious: to what is right in front of you. There you will find your blessings. Not out there, amongst the unknown and hidden. Your sustenance has been decreed for you. Your true companions too. All others are just passersby, soon to be forgotten. Do not seek to be known. …
What if I beat myself up for twenty years, thinking that the way you treated me was because of something I had done, when it was nothing like that at all? What if your contempt for me was founded not in my behaviour, but on a sectarianism I had never considered? Is it my fault …
These last weeks, I have returned to a novel I first started writing in 2007. I have enjoyed reacquainting myself with the characters. The last time I had touched this manuscript was late June 2011, and it looks like only for about fifteen minutes. Wow, a decade ago. Well, we have been busy in that …
My ego protests: “You must be known.” But my heart responds: “Be content with your lot.” Yes, be content to be unknown, forgotten. Vanquish your ego. Worship your Lord alone.
The tides of time. How the years pass us by. Some of those I knew at university have already seen their own children graduate. Some then were already married and had started a family when we were in our first year of studies; those children now all grown up, with children of their own. Some …
It’s funny. I didn’t feel so all alone until I walked out amongst the people. Until then, when I was truly alone, I was doing fine. But now these heavy blues. I wish I had been content with my solitude. Just me and my Lord.
But the past is gone to all humans. Time. Both unfathomable and true. Oh blues, blues: please leave me. Oh tears: be gone. Be back in the moment. Arise. Oh self: back to the present. Return.
I remember the first time I ever set eyes on you. I was sitting in the student common room when my Pakistani companion pointed at you and asked me: “Can you guess where she’s from?”
I don’t know your name. I have a vague recollection of it, though I have no idea how I would ever have known it, so may just as easily have imagined it. Perhaps it does not matter, except that it means I have no hope of ever actually reaching out and finding you.
I have spent so much of my life stuck in particular “rooms” of time, always wishing I could freeze-frame them and remain in that moment. However, I always arrive late, after everyone else has vacated them, finding myself alone inside. I don’t know how this happens. Always left behind, as the moment moves on for …
