On my way back to work after a Doctor’s appointment this morning, I happened to tune my radio into BBC London. This was a journey of about ten minutes, so I didn’t catch much; the famous Vanessa Feltz (whatever happened to Jon Gaunt?) was asking listeners to phone in with their opinion on Creationism and …
It isn’t actually difficult to appreciate how radicalisation occurs. Last night I had the misfortune of deciding to watch the previous evening’s edition of Newsnight on the web and was thus bombarded with the disgusting images emerging from Abu Ghraib I had so far managed to avoid. In my case I found that the sense …
I have never been a good Believer, neither as a Christian before those five years of agnosticism nor as a Muslim ever since. My faith has never been zealous; when I said I didn’t believe in God for a year or so around the age of fifteen even my atheism was agnostic. Nevertheless, however simple …
Were we unable to sin, would we appreciate God’s mercy? Of course, His mercy surrounds us; our hearts which beat without us giving thought, the rain which falls from the sky giving life to dead earth, the air which expands our breasts. But I wonder. Were it not for our ability to sin and err, …
An important lesson has been learned as a result of this fracas (and forgive me, but this is “The Journey of a Self-Centred Soul”) — it reveals the fragility of faith. Those words of the Prophet, peace be upon him, that before the Hour holding onto one’s religion would be like holding onto burning hot …
Sorry, don’t mean to be rude, but please, everyone, just shut up. The Book of James in the New Testament – Luther’s Epistle of Straw – always used to appeal to me during those agnostic days. Some words stay with me even now. …think of a ship: large though it may be and driven by …
As everyone knows, by and large I live under a rock. So I did not appreciate the depravity of the “protests” until my arrival at work this morning when I had my daily roundup of the news on BBC Online. The first image shows what appears to be a white woman in Niqab holding a …
A Quotation: “Still a prey to uncertainty, one day I decided to leave Baghdad and to give up everything; the next day I gave up my resolution. I advanced one step and immediately relapsed. In the morning I was sincerely resolved only to occupy myself with the future life; in the evening a crowd of …
I have just read news on the BBC that three Indonesian Christian girls were beheaded as they walked to school – news buried under the frenzy surrounding David Blunket’s business dealings. What an utterly sick age we live in. Even as we anticipate it in our Prophet’s words, the depravity never fails to appall. The …
There is something wrong with me at the moment. I don’t know what it is, but my emotions are heightened, I am on edge, easily upset and completely inconsistent. I have been like this for two months now, swinging between the strangest misery and confused folly. The misery reveals itself in the tears that well …
I have always considered understatement a very English characteristic. If something seems bloody obvious we would not then go to the trouble of articulating it. Recently, however, I have been reflecting on this and have come to realise what trouble it has caused me. It has begun to dawn on me that perhaps it is …
It is now two years and a month since I was told that I could never have children. The news was broken by a Locum Doctor while my GP was on her summer holidays – he didn’t know much about the disorder, had to look it up in his medical encyclopaedia, then advised me to …
The past has been exercising me over the last few days and I have been thinking about old friends and acquaintances I have left behind along the way. Perhaps it is because we have been visiting my wife’s extended family while in Turkey and catching up with a few of her old friends. I tried …
I am a little confused after attending the midday prayer at the mosque today. I arrived early and waited inside for the call to prayer. As it was read a fairly large congregation of elderly men arrived and we did the four sunnah prayers before the actual midday prayer. I haven’t developed the ability to …
If only we dwelled on this. Would there then be any of this chaos? In the Name of God, not in my name or your’s. If we reflected, would men of religion cut down innocents with explosives, thinking their deeds are good?
