Do not invest in your sins, for they will be difficult to leave when the time for repentance descends. I speak from experience, sadly.
I guess one mistake we make when we set out upon this road is to assume that we are important, or that the world does or should revolve around us. Very soon we grow despondent because nobody notices us, while we remain oblivious to all the other souls that are thinking just the same thing. …
In the two years before I first uttered my shahada, I came to fancy myself as a fine writer, although my only real talent was to have the patience to hammer out a million words on a keyboard in the middle of the night for months on end. I had two self-printed novels to show …
In this month of clemency, our Lord sent us a mercy in the form of a man who refused to fly into an unholy rage when his son was torn away from him in the midst of the anarchic disintegration that had seized a nation in the preceding hours. He has become an example for …
Some of my friends are angry with me, dispatching lengthy emails voicing their dissatisfaction. I know I should be hurt and offended, but instead I find myself thinking that this is just the voice of the Divine, revealing itself through His creation. I could compose great tracts in my defence, but I fear it would …
There is a disease that I have harboured for the best part of my life. It accompanied me as a child, an adolescent and an adult; as a Christian, an atheist, an agnostic and a Muslim; and in times of both health and sickness. I would define it as a disease of the soul — …
I’m not really sure about this Web 2.0 malarkey. I’ve just deleted my Facebook account again. Last time it was because I imagined a fantastical conspiracy in which key investors were databasing our identities for unspeakable ends. I can’t remember how the account came to be resurrected, but somehow I delved back in and rebuilt …
Here are some words from a great Muslim of the past that describe exactly what is happening with me. Last week I made a resolve and already I have slipped. And that argument with my nafs goes on, each day with another twist. That novel of mine is one of the chains. I know what …
These days I am repeatedly having a particular conversation with my nafs. It always goes something like this:
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 …
