Would I have become Muslim if I hadn’t set out to do my own research, to probe and investigate independently, to question popular narratives, to delve beneath the surface? What else could motivate me to take such a momentous step? What profit, gain or advantage? For consider my background. I am the youngest son of …
This blog should come with a health warning. “The author suffers from extremely low natural hormone levels and is therefore susceptible to wild mood swings. Please handle with care.” Interrogating myself as to why I feel so demotivated at the moment, it suddenly occurred to me that I am a month late with my quarterly …
After a heavy night’s rain, today’s trek to the local mosque was even more challenging than last week. Though thankfully we didn’t get soaked through this time, we nevertheless had to contend with roads mostly turned to rivers. If we hoped the council might repair the road outside our house, this journey provided some context. …
A video is doing the rounds which purports to show an Oxford mathematician destroying atheism by the power of rational argument. But does he really? His strength is pondering that the universe exists at all. The very fact that anything exists rather than nothing, let alone the fine balance capable of enabling, supporting and sustaining …
To speak the truth when nobody is listening is easy. For most of my blogging career, I have been blessed to have hardly any readers. Such obscurity granted me the freedom to write about whatever I wanted, whether it was of interest to others or not. But to speak the truth when it suddenly occurs …
Don’t be so sure of yourself, thinking yourself invincible. Don’t be so sure that God won’t take faith away from you and hand it to another people altogether. Daily we see those raised Jews, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists or with no faith at all jumping aboard the caravan. If we abandon faith in all but …
The idea that simple believers have to choose where they stand with regards to despotic regimes is just daft. Don’t stand with any of them. You’re not called to take a side, other than the side of goodness, truth and justice. If that means you have to distance yourself from every state, so be it. …
I agree, there is a great conspiracy at play, the protagonists many, representing a multitude of interests and causes. The problem is, the biggest conspirator happens to be ourselves. We are brought down mostly by our refusal to live by the ideals we preach to others. While it’s true that paparazzi, journalists, political foes, disgruntled …
Every community needs scholars in every field, but that doesn’t mean everyone should aspire to be one. Our deen is often taught as a theoretical construct, which demands we spend a lifetime learning. But really it is a practical entity, which requires action. It is meant to be brought to life in our lives. The …
We are all masters of our own downfall. When we veer widely from the way in our personal lives, who can be blamed but ourselves? If others should conspire against us, does that absolve of us of our own wickedness? Certainly, God does not wrong us, but we wrong ourselves. Are we not truly authors …
Be witnesses to truth. This is our central calling. To determine the truth, we must investigate, undertaking to research and probe as much as we are able to, attempting to independently verify whatever information has reached us. O you who have believed, if there comes to you a disobedient one with information, investigate, lest you …
What a confusion is being sold to the common man. What once were considered enormities, with criminal sanctions, are now passed over as moral slips, of no consequence whatsoever. Congratulations, you have successfully thrown your religion under the bus. That might be acceptable if it was only your personal faith discarded in this manner. But, …
Truthfulness must by necessity be the foundation stone of any religious movement. If it is absent, it is worthless, destined to fail. The driving impulse of those who seek is the pursuit of truth. A movement which discards ethics not only disappoints, but also undermines itself. We do not believe in whatever it takes or …
If I should disappear from the online ummah, it is not to say I have become a disbeliever. My faith in God is unshakeable. Daily will I perform salah, just as I have done five times a day for the past twenty-five years. With every mouthful, I will still utter, “Bismillah.” When I fall into …
Not for us is it to judge whether the public persona, humble and contrite, is real and true. Not for us to peer into another’s heart and comment on what it contains within. Not for us to comment on their relationship with their Lord, on the sincerity of their repentance or the outcome of inner …
