Is there any hope of peace in the Middle East? I don’t know about that. What about at our local mosque? All peace, love and harmony? Hardly. Jummah prayer ended today with shouting, effing and blinding, pushing and shoving. “If you bring your kids to mosque again,” yells one of the men, “I’ll ducking smash …
I do believe there’s an unseen metaphysical link between the words or thoughts of others and their effect of events in our lives. A couple of years ago, I think they caused me to fall flat on my face on the hard pavement, both pitting my skin with gravel and bruising my ego. I believe …
Not long ago, I thought I was standing up for truth and justice, and all that is good and virtuous. Now I doubt what I was defending, absolutely. What if I was completely mistaken? What if my conclusions and assumptions were all wrong? What if the information I gathered was suspect? What if my efforts …
Haya is for both men and women.
So many preachers preaching. So few apparently practising what they preach. Do you order righteousness of the people and forget yourselves, while you recite the scripture? Will you not reason? Quran 2:44 These the words that spring to mind encountering the multitude of preachers that teem online. Would there be any need for such preaching if …
Worship none but God. Be good to your parents and kinsfolk, to orphans and the poor. Speak good words to all people. Establish and keep up the prayer. Pay the prescribed alms and give charity. Do not shed one another’s blood. Do not evict one another from their homes.
“Are we living in the end times?” asks the internet. Well, clearly the lifespan of every human is finite. Thus, for every generation, these are certainly the end times. Each of us is hurtling towards our end. For some, death comes too soon, while a few may see out a century. In the nineteenth century …
Never does the vanity and conceit of self-praising preachers get any less vulgar. To see sages traipsing the stage praising themselves is quite bizarre. What next? Playing recordings of others praising them? Long ago we learned that the act of praising another is akin to breaking their back. Throw dust in the face of those …
Today’s khutbah was about Abu Bakr, the famous companion of the Prophet, peace be upon him. The imam told the congregation that he was the first Muslim — or rather, the first to believe in the prophethood of Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Abdal Muttalib ibn Hashim. On our way out of the mosque after the …
From a little town called Bethlehem
Speaking of the events of the day with a guest at the weekend, I confessed that I’m the least qualified to express an opinion given that I’m not a fighter at all. “You’re basically a pacifist,” they nodded, smiling. A fair diagnosis, for I believe war should be a last resort. A necessary evil at …
I wake again in the middle of the night with intense agitation in my heart. I think it’s a result of my subconscious turning over our attempt to give our youngest some independence. Perhaps we are overprotective and overly restrictive parents, but my anxiety seems to have shot through the roof on their return. We …
