contemporary concerns
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Recognising the Role & Value of Muslim Teachers
DESPITE THEM BEING on the frontline of rearing, educating and nurturing the hearts and minds of the young, day in; day out, the sad reality is that Muslim teachers are still hugely undervalued by us Muslims as a community. And yet it is undeniable that young people are more positively influenced by teachers than they… Continue reading
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Principle v. Practice: Questions on Modern Muslimness
In principle, there’s good cause to counter the allegation that, historically, Islam impeded the development of modern science in the medieval Muslim world. In practice, this must not translate into the belief that scientific progress is an absolute value upon which the credibility of Islam must actually rest. ≡ In principle, a Muslim scholar possessed… Continue reading
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Anxiety, Liquid Modernity & the Assault on Our Primordiality
THE MODERN WORLD IS RADICALLY different to anything and everything that has gone before it. Defining what modernity actually is tends to be elusive, even to philosophers and to those in the social sciences. But it does have certain traits. Modernity – this ‘brilliant series of distractions,’ as it’s been called – is the great… Continue reading
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The Goal of the Shari‘ah is Justice, Not Equality
IN SPEAKING OF JUSTICE, many well-intended Muslims are unconsciously secularised. For their discourse about justice (Ar. ‘adl, qist) is so often scarred by failing to grasp its Quranic essence: ‘To put a thing in its rightful place.’1 Which is to say, justice is to give things their proper due – at the due time, the due place, and in due measure. This requires… Continue reading
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Times Will Get Worse Before They Get Better: But How?
Q. Do times get worse throughout the ages, after the Prophet’s era ﷺ? And is there a basis for believing this in the textual sources of Islam? Can you also say something about the return of Jesus, peace be upon him, and the coming of the Dajjal, and how they fit into the overall pattern… Continue reading
expelling the hadith about the deterioration of times, fundamental difference between Islam and liberalism, future is for islam, hadith about how the times will get worse, how islam brings ultimate peace on Earth, Ibn Hajr explaining how times worsen, problem with the fiqh of taysir, rule of the mahdi, the hadith on how there will be peace on Earth, the return of Jesus -
On Following Concessions & Relaxed Rulings in Islamic Law
Q. Is it true that part of Islam’s legal culture is the idea that a normative religious ruling (‘azimah) can be temporarily replaced by a concessionary ruling (rukhsah), in order to lift hardship? A. Yes it’s true, but with conditions and caveats. Let me explain: ♦ The Holy Qur’an says: يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ بِكُمْ الْيُسْرَ وَلاَ… Continue reading
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A Word on Salafis & Ash‘aris, and Fossilised Theologies
Speaking about his personal hopes and endeavours, Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah once shared these following remarks: وَالنَّاسُ يَعْلَمُونَ أَنَّهُ كَانَ بَيْنَ الْحَنْبَلِيَّةِ وَالْأَشْعَرِيَّةِ وَحْشَةٌ وَمُنَافَرَةٌ. وَأَنَا كُنْت مِنْ أَعْظَمِ النَّاسِ تَأْلِيفًا لِقُلُوبِ الْمُسْلِمِينَ وَطَلَبًا لِاتِّفَاقِ كَلِمَتِهِمْ وَاتِّبَاعًا لِمَا أُمِرْنَا بِهِ مِنْ الِاعْتِصَامِ بِحَبْلِ اللَّهِ وَأَزَلْت عَامَّةَ مَا كَانَ فِي النُّفُوسِ مِنْ الْوَحْشَةِ، وَبَيَّنْت لَهُمْ أَنَّ… Continue reading
AI and Islam, Ash’arism, can there be a modern Islamic state?, feminism and Islam, Ibn Taymiyyah mending rift between Salafi and Ash’aris, Islamic critique of liberalism, quantum theory and Islam, refuting heterodoxy in Islam, Salafism, stagnation in Islamic theology, theological challenges to Islam in the 21st century, theology and Islamic governance