I awoke this morning with these sentiments foremost in my mind: Do you order people to righteousness and forget yourselves, even while reciting the scripture? Have you no sense? Quran 2:44 How daft to make it your life’s work to call others to faith, but have nothing to show for it. Did you let the …
The Muslim world is diverse and it has always accommodated such diversity. That is its strength. Don’t be surprised to encounter diversity of opinion in the schools of jurisprudence. The accumulation of knowledge didn’t just happen in one day. Vociferous demagogues tends not to have the humility to appreciate this fact, but it is a …
I suppose it’s time to stop talking about probabilities. On Thursday, our daughter went on a school trip to Hampton Court. While there, by chance, she bumped into the daughter of our friends from Ealing. Not long ago, my parents travelled from Bath to stay with us. Midway, they broke their journey for lunch, seventy …
While getting epileptic about relationships education we forgot to teach our kids about relationships.
The online ummah isn’t real to me. It largely teems with narcissists playing religion, much as kids play dressing up. This morning, WhatsApp friends decided to interrupt my serene exile by introducing me to the latest schism to occupy cyberstan. I wish they didn’t. These battles are cyclical. In the latest installment, some of the …
Nobody knows why everything is broken. All the supermarket staff will tell us is that it’s getting worse every day. They can’t get the staff. They can’t fill vacancies. They can’t get cover. The shelves are empty. Some sections are closed. They’re not getting deliveries. They can’t get the products they used to. Yes, it’s …
We spend so much of lives at work that it’s hard not to feel despondent when things don’t seem to be going our way. But just as these feelings of despair were about to overwhelm me this evening, I suddenly thought to myself: “Work does not define you.” I am growing weary of the perpetual …
A lot of this “confusion” over gender identity could be avoided if young men who are not loud, brash, tough, athletic or warrior-like could be taught that being shy, gentle, humble or kind doesn’t necessarily make them any less “manly”. Proponents of the notion of what constitutes a “real man” are as much to blame …
Speaking to a colleague today, I learnt that he lives in my old neck of the woods in west London. A neighbourhood I know well, having lived just around the corner from him as a lodger in the year 2000. It’s hard not to be envious of those who have settled in that warren of …
It’s strange, I suppose, that after years struggling with feelings of being invisible, I ended up embracing hidden spaces, far from the madding crowd. For most of the past decade, I worked alone. For nearly fifteen years, I blogged alone too, as the online fraternity made its exodus to social media, never to return. In …
It’s a shame that by July the back garden has pretty much finished doing its thing. All that remains now is the rampant growth of bind weed, Russian vine, brambles and ivy from over the garden fence. The triumphant floral displays of May and June are all now long forgotten. The garden protests its neglect.
Lockdowns, I think, broke nearly everything. They broke people’s relationships. They destroyed people’s businesses. They wiped out income streams. They made people homeless. They eradicated memories, increased anxiety and isolation, and made some people more selfish and insular. While saving lives as a direct consequence of the virus, health outcomes for other conditions were simultaneously …
Tech companies finding out the hard way what happens when the bean counters fire all the techs, in order to invest extra billions in AI. Flaky deployments, systems outages, abandoned products, brand disintegration. It’s a brave new dawn.
To be a positive, happy person: how to cultivate that within? Sometime we encounter people who, despite carrying great burdens, exude such generosity of spirit as to render us dour ones contrite. These those folk who despite profound loss, hardship or inner pain, nevertheless have a smile for all they meet, lightening the load for …
