http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4965116.stm Oh Muslim youth, I weep for you. Those of you who gather outside the mosque immediately after Jummah prayer, the F-word already littering your conversations once more. Those of you stunting on your mountain bikes in front of old ladies so that they quake in their shoes. Those of you who park on private …
So it is the day after May Day once more. While I often forget my birthday, this bank holiday and the day that follows it in the UK calendar is stuck in my memory. Eight years ago this wee holiday was the weekend I concluded that I believed in Islam. The Tuesday that followed was …
I am, as they say, ker-nackered. I have spent the afternoon in the garden, trying to prepare my wife’s vegetable patch. We are on very heavy clay soil and the clumps are like rocks. After spending a couple of hours trying to break the chunks of mud into smaller pieces, I started digging in 300 …
So I keep going on about writing – writing, writing, writing – but there is actually another past-time fast taking over. All of my hobbies are time consuming. It isn’t that I enjoy hard work, indeed I am probably one of the laziest people you could ever meet, but I love to see the finished …
Last year I moved house and changed jobs at the same time. We got the keys for our new home in the last week of May and I started my new job in the first week of June. In both cases it was the start of something new in an unfamiliar town. We had lived …
Some of the people dearest to me are people who would call themselves “Salafis”. They nurtured me when I was new to this deen, helped me and never failed to offer me support. Over the years I have seen each of them evolve in their own particular way. One of my friends is sensitive, has …
Here comes the rain – Alhamdulilah. The sky is beige and its falling in sheets. Good for the garden I am sure. Still, my wife has rushed into the garden to defend her vege against the snail/slug onslaught – last seen heading for the garden with a bag of porridge. Don’t ask. Anyway, alhamulilah for …
While preparing our vegetable patch this weekend, burning the last remnants of our pruning, it occurred to me that the average Englishman hardly has any relationship with fire in this age. If we are cold, we flip a switch and do the same when it gets dark; the closest we get are the blue jets …
When I was studying for my Masters degree in Publishing six years ago, I was interested as a recent convert to Islam in the question of safeguarding knowledge now that technology had brought publishing within virtually anyone’s grasp. As a new Muslim I was interested in the question of what constituted knowledge, given that I …
I have been asked to write something about my love of writing, where it started and so on. It is an interesting question, especially when I look back. I am not well read nor am I learned. I did not have this interest throughout school – or at least I don’t think I did – …
There is a fantastic bird of prey that I have seen circling in the sky in this region repeatedly over recent months. It is one of the most exciting sights I know. Sitting at my work station in the office all day under the buzzing florescent lighting, the sight of one those birds – some …
Exactly a decade ago I spent every day, between the hours of about two in the afternoon and three in the morning, tapping out a novel called The Beauty of the Lion. I had just finished a short contract testing mapping software on the Science Park in Cambridge and had returned to my parents’ home. …
The power of words is astonishing. Some have the power to stir the emotions, to lighten one’s load. Others strike like a knitting needle pushed through the heart; that piercing pain that arises on receipt of harsh sentiments. Others still just perturb. Last night I could not sleep because words had unsettled me. My chest …
It is Easter weekend and I am staying in the Rectory with my parents. As both of them are vicars responsible for different churches, they are in and out all weekend. The station of the cross on Good Friday after the night vigil on Thursday. My mother has already returned from her service this evening, …
Something to keep in mind… Question 1: “Are these words true?” Question 2: “Are these words necessary?” Question 3: “Are these words beneficial?” Question 4: “Are these words kind?” If I think the answer is no, I should probably leave them in my head.
