None of us are immune from the intensifying pressures of a world that has little or no care for God. The idolatry, immorality and ignorance of God’s purpose that defile the world are the core dangers which Revelation warns against. Today, that which defiles souls is closer than ever. In our internet age, it’s often just a click away. In one of the earliest chapters of the Qur’an to be revealed, it says: O you enveloped in your mantle, arise and warn, magnify your Lord, purify your garment, and shun [all] defilement. [74:1-5] These “Footprints” are about how we as Muslims may best magnify God; to keep His holiness in our hearts and mould our lives around this holiness. It’s about how we, in this age of aggressive liberalism, can best be conscientious believers and responsible citizens while wisely avoiding defilement. (Earlier “Footprints” can be read here, here, here and here).

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On loyalty to la ilaha illa’Llah: In today’s world, behaviour inconsistent with the moral teachings of Islam, by those who claim to follow Islam, is a significant cause for Islam to be devalued and mocked.

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On staying focused: The believer lives in this world; he doesn’t live for this world: And the Hereafter is better for those who are mindful of God. Have you no sense? [Qur’an 6:32]

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On trying to nurture 20/20 vision: Religion is about learning to see. It’s about human vision – the heart’s vision – as it learns to see past surface appearances to witness the Real. For as the Qur’an puts it: It isn’t the eyes that grow blind, but it is the hearts in the chests that become blind. [22:46]

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Addictions wreak marriages: Along with the obvious types of prospective husbands to avoid – those that are irreligious, immoral, arrogant, ill-tempered, miserly, immature, impatient, and lack compassion and understanding – one must also beware of those who are in the grip of serious addictions. Alcohol, drugs and pornography are obvious ones. But two subtler addictions should also be steered clear of: The first is a man’s addiction to his mother. In other words, a “mummy’s boy”. This must not be confused with our love, honour, duty, or kindness to our mothers. For there’s a huge difference between that and between sheepish subservience to them. A husband who allows his mother to rule the roost, permitting her to marginalise the role and rights of his wife, is failing to offer his wife the protective care she has a right to. The other addiction is to video games. An increasing number of marriages are now failing because of it. In short, addictions wreck marriages.

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On science, religion and meaning:  It is in the nature of science to take things apart to see how they work; while it is in the nature of religion to put things together to see what they mean.

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On Ramadan’s reality: The whole purpose of fasting in Ramadan is to foster a state of detachment from the world, and from our ego and desires. This creates, as it were, a space in our souls for the remembrance of God and for awareness of His presence: O you who believe, fasting is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed to those before you, that you may become mindful of God. [2:183]

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On bowing to the monoculture: One of the signs of the End Days, and whose onward trajectory has been underway for a century or so, is: the uncritical imitation of non-Muslim lifestyles and values. One hadith says: ‘The Hour will not be established until my ummah takes to what previous nations took to.’ [Al-Bukhari, no.7319] In another: ‘You shall soon follow the ways of those who came before you, inch by inch, handspan by handspan, so much so that if they were to enter a lizard’s hole, you’d do likewise.’ They asked: O Allah’s Messenger, do you mean the Jews and Christians? He replied: ‘Who else?’ [Al-Bukhari, no.7320; Muslim, no.2669]

Thus, as long as we keep deferring to the dominant monoculture and its ideals, things shall not bode well for this ummah of great mercies. Inculturation – i.e. one group or culture gradually acquiring the traits, values and norms of another culture – must be guided by the rulings and objectives of our fiqh teachings, as well as kept wise by the profound insights of our tasawwuf/tazkiyah tradition.

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On lovers at love’s ocean: The conceited intellectual is always showing-off. The lover, through the shari’ah, is always getting lost. The self-absorbed intellectual is afraid of diving. The whole business of love is in the drowning.

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On seeking to be present: Presence of heart with God (hudur al-qalb) isn’t only due in our salat and du‘a, it is something sought during each moment of our life. One of the greatest paths to nurturing such presence is by kathrat al-dhikr – “remembering God abundantly.”

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On remembering our destination: Only fools wander, only the wise travel, and only a ship that knows where it’s heading benefits from favourable winds.

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Please take some blame for the religious anarchy: The scourge of takfir is now a global epidemic. Indiscriminate violence, destruction of lives and property, decimation of public security and sectarian violence are its fruits. The image of Islam has never been so tarnished or been made to look so vile. Those who, for reasons of wanting to revive the Sunnah, opened the door for ordinary, religiously unqualified Muslims to ‘weigh-up’ and follow the ‘strongest’ proof in matters of taharah, salat and personal piety, but somehow imagined they could keep the door closed when it came to the more fragile, volatile matter of politics and public affairs – well that logic seems not to have faired so well. Those ‘ulema who opened the door now see droves of zealous and unqualified people rushing through it, giving wild and fallacious fatwas on Islam – undermining qualified juristic authority, creating religious anarchy, and tearing apart what remains of Muslim unity – and they don’t know what to do or how to stem this tide. And, of course, out of such a collapse of traditional scholarly authority have come the takfiris, with their terror and tribulations.

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On our God-given intelligence: What’s the point of the shari‘ah aiming to protect the intellet (‘aql) – the ability to reason, reflect, discern benefit from harm, and to reign in the soul from wrongdoing – if we aren’t going to adequately utilise it?

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On obsession with conspiracy theories: Are the various conspiracy theories that have etched their way into popular culture true? Maybe. Have the powerful elites of every age sought to band together to control, manipulate and subdue the masses? Possibly. Is God in full control of history and of human destiny? Absolutely! Yet many Muslims forget this last fact and instead are obsessed with chasing shadows.

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On lowering the ceiling of learning: Those Muslims who think that they have enough religious learning and wish not to learn more, are not just unwise; they could even be outright fools.

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On the modern Muslim challenge: Monotheism urges we be part of society, yet apart from society. It insists we heal and we dissent too. A paradox? Monotheism’s vision is very much about how to square such paradoxical circles. Abdal Hakim Murad spoke of the need for Muslims to square the proverbial circle in these terms: ‘The challenge of modern Muslimness is to combine a confident dissent from the global culture with a sense of service and humility. Triumphalism is no less damaging to the soul than an inferiority complex. Where loyalty is for God, and love is for what humanity has been called to become, believers can combine pity for the monoculture’s shrunken victims with gratitude for God’s guidance.’

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On the devil inspiring religiousness: A large number of Muslims involved in terrorism tend to lack even basic religious literacy. All too often their lack of religious learning is woefully infantile. Religion, it seems, plays a role less as a driver of their behaviour, but more as a vehicle for their pathologies and political outrage:

A bro who once lived with his mummy;
Wanted street cred more than some money.
“Shall I be a mufti,
Or takfiri jihadi?”
So he went and brought ‘Islam for a Dummy’.

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On political order and disorder: Left to our egos or selfish impulses, man’s corrupted nature (fitrah) would render man’s life – to cite Hobbes – ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.’ Hence, according to classical Muslim scholarship, we have the blessings of God sending Revelation and Prophets, for the guidance and welfare of individuals and society. Hence, also, Islam’s insistence on yielding to political authority over anarchy, and guarding public security – wary of any actors who seek to erode or to undermine them. Needless to say, Islam envisages government to pursue the objectives of justice (‘adl), the promotion of benefit (maslahah), and the prevention of harm (mafsadah). To be specific, Islamic governance is committed to protect man’s five essential interests (al-dururiyyat al-khamsah); namely: faith, life, intellect, lineage and property. This, at least, is the theory.

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On sifting the wheat from the chaff: ‘Ijazah (“authorisation” to teach) doesn’t always equate to having gained mastery in the particular subject of sacred learning. But it does represent an adab of learning and of heading in the right direction. It also helps to sift out DIY Islam from the real deal; the wheat from the chaff.

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On the dumbing down of society: Here in the West, over the past four of five decades, much has been said and debated about the dumbing down of society. Dumbing down refers to the oversimplification of critical thought as well as the diminishment of the intellectual content in education, art, culture and politics. Even though we have more information at our disposal, we are seen to be far less capable of critical thinking than the generations of people before us. The argument is that media and entertainment, the over reliance on technology, and capitulating to turbo consumerism, has all led to this numbing and dumbing down. A more sinister narrative insists that the dumbing down has been socially engineered, so that “the powers that be” may keep the masses in check  – less the Orwellian, and more the Huxleyan engineering!

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On a state worse than sin: Committing sin is undeniably wrong. But it’s when sins no longer strike a discordant note in the soul that one really needs to worry.

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On the art of living beautifully: Adab is the art of being trained in decency. Such must be the hallmark of each believer.