modernity & muslimness

June 18, 2020

On British Muslims & Racism: Do Black Lives Matter?

Q. As Muslims, what should our stance be on racism or racial discrimination, and should we be supporting social justice movements like Black Lives Matter (BLM)? And isn’t all of this support for BLM privileging justice for black people over others, especially when we Muslims realise the increasing Islamophobia and injustices being perpetrated against our… Continue reading

activism, contemporary concerns, correctives & clarifications, ethics & morals, modernity & muslimness, politics & society

BLM & Muslims, books on anti-black racism, Islam and racism, Muslims and racism, racial discrimination, racial inequality, racism and Britain’s Black Muslims, should Muslims support Black Lives Matter?
June 9, 2020

Kalam & the Hanbalis: Is It Really Relevant Today?

Often rendered into English as ‘theology’, ‘ilm al-kalam (or kalam, for short) is the science which establishes and elaborates upon matters of doctrine and belief. Because it depends upon reason-based arguments, it is ‘discursive’: hence ‘ilm al-kalam is sometimes referred to as discursive theology. In its more conjectural or philosophical form – a form where it… Continue reading

contemporary concerns, correctives & clarifications, hanbali fiqh, knowledge & learning, modernity & muslimness, orthodoxy & ahl al-sunnah, reason, religion, rationality, theology

Al-Ghazali on kalam, brief history of kalam in Islam, challenges of Muslim theologians today, contemporary issues in Islamic theology, difference between kalam and ‘aqidah, good books to critique modernity from traditional faith perspective, how a Muslim can best learn their ‘aqidah or beliefs?, Ibn Juzayy on kalam, Ibn Taymiyyah on kalam, is kalam relevant today?, Is the science of kalam obsolete today?, Islam and rationality, Islamic critiques of the post-modern secular world, proofs for God’s existence, questioning scientism, verifying the two premises of the kalam cosmological argument, what is the hanbali stance on kalam theology?, what is the kalam cosmological argument?, what relevancy does kalam have in the 21st century?
May 3, 2020

Muslim Scholars Must Learn To Be Macro Thinkers

Let me commence with the following: The sixteenth century French essayist and moralist, Michel de Montaigne, wrote in his famous Essays: ‘It could be said of me that in this book I have only made up a bunch of other men’s flowers, providing of my own only the string to tie them together.’ This, I should… Continue reading

contemporary concerns, knowledge & learning, modernity & muslimness

abdal hakim murad, Cambridge Muslim College, How can authentic Muslimness thrive in modernity, how social sciences discourse can manipulate Islamic discourse, Iskam, Islam and humanism, Islam and occasionalism, Islam and the need to understand modernity, Islamic macro thinking, Islamic pedagogy and madrassahs and modern curriculums, Islamic response to universe from nothing, Islamism and other such terms coopted by securitisation industry, Muslim macro theology, social welfare and humanism, updating curriculum in higher Islamic institutions
December 5, 2019

Intelligent and Informed Faith is Our Only Option

THE LATE GAI EATON PUT his finger on the crux of the matter (as it seems to me), when he wrote 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, knowledge & learning, modernity & muslimness, reason, religion, rationality, short read, technology & social change

challenge assumptions of liberal modern its, Gai Eaton on Islam and modernity, Muslims must have intelligent faith, Muslims need to understand modernity
October 6, 2019

The Veiling of Islam & Modern Muslimness

With everyone offering their opinion about what Islam is really about, with even far-right voices cashing in on the furore, Muslims are in danger of allowing the essential message of their religion to be drowned out in all the hullabaloo. And while it’s not always easy to essentialize the faith, to sort out Islamic principles… Continue reading

consider Islam, modernity & muslimness, orthodoxy & ahl al-sunnah, theology

Abdal hakim Murad on not changing religion to please people, calling to Islam with beauty and wisdom, image of Islam in the West, Islam’s image after 9/11, islamophobia, Qur’an on watering-down religion
September 14, 2019

Limericks to Engage the Faith-Based Mind: 2

Here are some more limericks highlighting, not just religious themes, but also faith-based conundrums and challenges (an earlier helping can be read here): I A hippy who was ever so calm, Thought that peace was the whole of Islam. His faith got derailed; God’s Oneness, he veiled; For a penny, he’ll now read your palm.… Continue reading

modernity & muslimness, poetry, limericks, literature, politics & society, short read

forms of pride, legitimate differences of opinion, showing off
September 10, 2019

Limericks to Engage the Faith-Based Mind: 1

Here are a collection of limericks, short and snappy, through which a variety of religious themes and faith-based issues are served-up as quirks, curiosities and, of course, food for thought: I A lad who watched Starsky & Hutch, Then got the Khawarij-like touch. As his raged unfurled, He said: ‘I must change the world. ‘I… Continue reading

consider Islam, modernity & muslimness, poetry, limericks, literature, politics & society, short read

counterterrorism, Islam and terrorism, khawarij, sufis and salafis, taqlid
August 30, 2019

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

contemporary concerns, da’wah & muslim apologetics, modernity & muslimness, politics & society, science & religion, short read, theology

fate of non-Muslims in the Afterlife, how Muslims can best grow and thrive in the West, Islam and evolution, Muslims and the environment, pride in Islam, should Muslims be political activists or apolitical, status of science in Islam, what makes a person a Muslim
July 12, 2019

Islam’s Critical Thinking: Hurdles & Principles

Like the words “diversity,” “freedom,” or “moderate,” “critical thinking” is one of those unexamined buzz-words of our age that is banded around without much errr … critical thinking! For what differentiates critical thinking from ordinary thinking? Or what level or depth is needed for thinking to be deemed “critical”? Can the critical thinking of two… Continue reading

contemporary concerns, knowledge & learning, modernity & muslimness

guidelines to critical thinking in Islam, Islam and the social sciences, what is critical thinking, what makes an opinion Islamically valid
June 25, 2019

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

contemporary concerns, modernity & muslimness

Bauman on modernity, definition of modernity, modernity and fitrah, modernity’s impact of Muslim collective psyche, nature of modernity

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.