The Humble I

Knowing, Doing, Becoming

contemporary concerns

June 25, 2018

New Q&A Listing on the Blog

Over the years, I’ve had a number of requests and suggestions about making a list of the Q&A content on the blog, so as to make it more user friendly. Finally, here is that list of Questions & Answers that have been directly or indirectly responded to on this site. And whilst, over the years,… Continue reading

contemporary concerns, religion, short read

The Humble I content list, The Humble I list of questions
April 12, 2018

The Male Lust, the Female Form & the Forbidden Gaze

Allah ﷻ informs in the Holy Qur’an: Made beautiful for mankind is the love of desires for women and offspring, of hoarded heaps of gold and silver, of branded horses, cattle and plantations. [3:14] Although such things are elsewhere spoken of positively in the Qur’an, as blessings for which people should be thankful, here they are… Continue reading

contemporary concerns, ethics & morals, heart matters, marriage, family, gender

fitnah of women, gender ethics in Islam, harms ion the lustful gaze, how the heart is enslaved, Ibn al-Qayyim on the forbidden gaze, levels of love and infatuation, spiritual significance of lowering the gaze
March 28, 2018

Stephen Hawking and the Fate of Non-Muslims in the Afterlife

In 1985, I started my degree in Astrophysics up in the north of England, at one of the only two places in the country which offered this course. It was more or less what I had set my heart on studying ever since reading Isaac Asimov’s, The Collapsing Universe: The Story of the Black Holes… Continue reading

contemporary concerns, da’wah & muslim apologetics, reason, religion, rationality, science & religion, theology

can we declare that a specific non-muslim will be damned in Hellfire?, death of Hawkin, do non-Muslims go to heaven?, explaining how the universe started, origins of the universe, proof for God, refuting atheism, Stephen Hawking, what happens to non-Muslims when they die?
February 15, 2018

Contemporary Challenges to Islam & Muslims: Atheism

The late Gai Eaton put his finger on the crux of the matter (as it seems to me), when he expressed three or four decades ago: ‘I think it must have been easy enough in earlier ages in the Christian world, and is still easy in those parts of the Muslim world which remain traditional,… Continue reading

contemporary concerns, da’wah & muslim apologetics, knowledge & learning, science & religion, theology

answering atheism, God or the multiverse?, is atheism intellectual or cultural?, Islam and atheism, Muslims and atheism, replying to atheism, what leads people to atheism?
September 18, 2017

Concerning Functional Fatwas & Dysfunctional Muftis

Do fatwas change with place and time; if so, how? Is Islamic fiqh fossilised? Do we require a new fiqh for the 21st century? Are classically-trained muftis fit for purpose in today’s world? Should the ‘ulema be trained in the core philosophical underpinnings of modernity? Does the new maqasid-based fiqh offer a better way forward… Continue reading

contemporary concerns, correctives & clarifications, knowledge & learning

do fatwas changer with time and place, do Muslims require a new fiqh for the 21st century?, higher objectives of Islamic law, Is the concept of an ‘Islamic state‘ legitimate?, is traditional fiqh fossilised?, maqasid al-shari‘ah, Muslims and modernity, should Muslims in the West rely on scholars from outside the West?, what is modernity?
July 17, 2017

The State Seeking to Domesticate Muslim Scholars

I suppose our starting point can only be this advice from the Prophet ﷺ: ‘Whoever comes to the doors of the ruler is put to trial.’1 Discussion about this, I must admit, is a difficult and delicate one; so I’ll try to be as nuanced and even handed as possible. And Allah’s help is sought. This concern, first off,… Continue reading

activism, contemporary concerns, knowledge & learning, politics & society

fitnah for scholars cooperating with the state, Ibn al-Jawzi on Muslim scholars working with rulers, Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali on ‘ulema visiting rulers, is it allowed for ulema to enter upon rulers?, Muslim scholars and socio-political activism, RAND report 2007, UK Muslim scholars and Prevent Counter-Terrorism strategy
March 16, 2017

Jihad & Martyrdom, War & Peace

Is Islam a conquest ideology more than an actual religion, as some now claim? Is Jihad identical to ‘perpetual war’ in Islam’s grand political scheme of things? And is the life of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ mostly about blood and gore and body counts? These are the issues addressed here. Muslim scholars have long identified two types of jihad… Continue reading

consider Islam, contemporary concerns, correctives & clarifications, fiqh & usul al-fiqh, theology

death toll in the great civilizations, does islamic civilisation have the greatest body count?, Hostility is reason for jihad not disbelief, Ibn taymiyyah and defensive jihad, inner and outer jihad, is Islam inherently violent?, is jihad fought to convert people?, jihad al-nafs, jihad in Islam, Muslim holy war, Muslim jurists and UN Peace Charter, philosophy of jihad in classical and contemporary Islam, rules of war in Islam, the greater jihad, truth about jihad, truth about Muslim martyrdom, vital in Islam, war in Islam, was the Prophet a war monger?, were the Prophet’s battles defensive or offensive?
February 25, 2017

The End of Man: Homo Sapiens & Spooky Science

Next year it will be two hundred years since Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was first put into print: if not the first science fiction novel to ever be written, it is certainly one of the first. Ever since, we as a society have not only been fascinated with the monsters that the science fiction genre has imagined into being, but… Continue reading

contemporary concerns, technology & social change

biotechnology, bioterror, Brief History of Humankind, dangers of AI, dangers of artificial intelligence, dangers of science and technology, destruction of the earth, doomsday prophecies, End of Man, ethics in science, Grandmaster Flash, hip hop, Martin Rees, nanobots, nanotrechnology, Our Final Century, reggae, Stephen Hawking, Steve Wozniak, stewards of the earth, weird science, will we survive beyond our 21st century?, Yuval Harari
February 16, 2017

Fitnah: Coming to a Sin-e-World Near You! (Part 2)

The first part of this blog (here) discussed the fitnah or tribulation of wealth, civil war and men’s weakness for women. The second and final part of the blog discusses three more fitnahs – that of callers to misguidance, spreading of inverted understandings of Islam, and the question of governments seeking to domesticate Islam and its scholars. And Allah’s help is sought. ♦ 4 –… Continue reading

contemporary concerns, fiqh & usul al-fiqh, politics & society, theology

amman message, definition of bid’ah, fitnah of callers to misguidance, fitnah of entering upon rulers, governments compromising Muslim scholars, inverted understandings of Islam, is it lawful for Muslim scholars mixing with rulers?, protection against fitnah, protection against trials snd tribulations, RAND report of 2007 and Muslims, seventy-three sects in Islam, trials and tribulations in Islam, what to do in times of trials and fitnah?, who are the ahl al-sunnah, who is the saved-sect
January 23, 2017

Fitnah: Coming to a Sin-e-World Near You! (Part 1)

The Arabic word fitnah bears the meaning of trial, discord, affliction, temptation and civil war, and any other strife ‘that ruptures the community’s unity and pits Muslim against fellow Muslim.’1 As well as discussing the ageless and abiding fitnah of wealth, women and civil war, this blog piece will also reflect upon the fitnahs related to callers to misguidance, governments seeking to domesticate Islam and… Continue reading

contemporary concerns, politics & society, sufism, suluk & spirituality

‘ishq, fitnah of civil wars, fitnah of wealth, how are women a fitnah?, how should Muslims view wealth or money?, Ibn al-Qayyim on civil wars and rebellion, Ibn al-Qayyim on the degrees of love, islamic teachings on civil war, Jaleel Ahmad Akhoon, lowering the gaze in Islam, meaning of fitnah, passionate love in Islam, temptations of wealth and women, the forbidden gaze, the illicit glance, types of fitnah

About Me

My name is Surkheel Sharif (aka Abu Aaliyah). Born and raised in London, England, I began my more formal, but gradual studies of the Islamic sciences around the late 1980s (just a few years after having quit my degree in Astrophysics). I also gained an MA in Islamic Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London, in 2009.

I’ve translated a few Islamic works from Arabic into English; one of them, a short text on Muslim spirituality, called The Exquisite Pearl (2000). I have also authored a few books, including: More Fish Please & the Earth’s Complaint (2011); Fussing Over the 15th of Sha’ban & the Golden Rule of Differing (2011); A Muslim’s Guide to Modernity (2025); and Salafism Reconsidered (forthcoming)

I am the founder and current Director of the Jawziyyah Institute (est. 1999): a non-profit organisation dedicated to cultivating an Islam true to its time-honoured tradition, relevant to its current context, and of benefit to wider society.