Proof that the pen is mightier than the sword: Government immediately utterly condemns an MP’s tweet, but refuses to condemn shelling of hospitals and hundreds of missile strikes on family homes. No nation would accept missiles raining down on them, they say (drone strikes on Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia don’t count). So we refuse to …
Last week, while our eyes were turned away, 700 people were killed in Syria over a 48 hour period. But amidst 160,000 dead, such horrific figures no longer mean anything. We have lost our humanity.
The world is too emotionally terrifying today, too draining and too frightening. Politicians, militants and social commentators alike want to divide us into groups, into us and them, to turn us on each other, to score points, to take sides, to have compassion for some and hatred for others. Today the news is of the …
Every time there is an enquiry into how abusers were able to get away with their abuse for so long and why those who were abused were ignored, the state proudly proclaims: “Never again will we blame the victims for the crimes perpetuated against them.” And yet here we are, witnessing the lives of innocents …
‘Israel has no civilians,’ says a friend: ‘all Israelis are soldiers, waiting to be called up.’ What, not even a 10 year old girl on her way to school or an old man in a care home? To me, this sounds more like the sunnah of the Irgun gang than the noble deen I follow, which emphasises …
“Serve God and associate nothing with Him; and do good: to parents, kinsfolk, orphans, those in need, neighbours who are near, neighbours who are strangers, the companion by your side, the traveler, and what your right hands possess: For God does not love not the arrogant, the boastful.” — Qur’an 4:36
The past few weeks have revealed the astounding wisdom of the traditional teachings of faith — that salutary advice found in pearls like the Letter of James of the Christian corpus and in the traditions of the Prophet of Islam alike. Advice like ‘do not act on your anger’: that the strong man is not …
With false piety, the rich and powerful trample on the poor and weak, and proclaim it a victory for civilisation.
The keyboard warriors are doing battle, clashing on all frontiers. With rage they tap ever faster on keyboards of glass and plastic, outdoing their opponents with snippets of sentiment, oblivious to the weight of their words. All is fair in love and war, they believe, unconscious of the cautious wisdom of old that sought to …
New laws will follow the widespread coverage of a dangerous social media campaign suddenly unleashed. The shepherds of Irton Moor will soon come knocking, because you were foolish enough to respond to media reports with a targeted keyword search. You will be criminalised for your curiosity. Hastag: it’s going to end in tears.
When it comes to answering a strange question on behalf of the citizens of Iraq — “Is it now okay to admit that Iraq was better off under tyranny than under unending anarchy?” — nothing really touches our leaders’ answer of Shock and Awe. Condemn them for their unceasing cynicism, not us; let them carry …
We will not be successful until we truly respect human life. One of the most important goals of Islam is the preservation of life, yet life is not respected in many Muslim countries. Instead, life is cheap. Therefore we cannot move forward.
Scratch the surface and you’ll find that many of today’s conflicts are about water, not ideology. An inconvenient truth. Consider the shrinking Lake Chad in West Africa, the Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan, and ISIS control of the Tigris and Euphrates, to name but 3 cases. It was the view of one of …
Ours is a community which can spin itself into a fury over a video featuring dancing Muslims, spewing forth a million words for or against, but falls dumb when a group of extremist lunatics reportedly kidnaps hundreds of girls from their school. Ours in a community ready to excommunicate and denounce believers for the tiniest …
In one breath you dismiss the faith of millions of your brothers, writing them off as sell-outs, apostates and hypocrites, while in the next you agitate on behalf of millions of others, unknown. Here are the contradictions of the Muslim propagandist. A brutal oppression is raging out there, elsewhere, in distant lands, and it is …
