reason, religion, rationality

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?
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
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?
May 15, 2016

Pilgrimage of Reason: Proofs for God’s Existence [2/2]

In the first part of the blog (here), I discussed a ‘proof’ for the existence of God vis-a-via the kalam cosmological argument. We saw how, as a rational argument, it is well reasoned, cogent and logical; hence giving a lie to New Atheism’s allegation that belief in God is irrational. But since the proof is highly abstract and theoretical, I suggested Continue reading

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

aQuranic argument for design, C.S. Lewis and the moral argument, God’s signs as proof for existence and His attributes, God’s signs lead to awe and love of Him, Ibn al-Qayyim’s watermill, knowing God’s existence via fitrah, moral proof, ontological proof, Paley’s watch anallogy, proofs for the existence of God, teleological proof, the signs of Allah
May 1, 2016

Pilgrimage of Reason: Proofs for God’s Existence [1/2]

As anyone familiar with anti-religious polemics knows, the core criticism by today’s New Atheists is that, allegedly, belief in God is both infantile and irrational. It is, they say, a childish delusion that ought to have died out as humanity reached its maturity. In the New Atheism’s canon, belief in God is likened to believing in the Tooth Fairy or Continue reading

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

‘ilm al-kalam, al-shafi’i against kalam, discursive theology, do hanbalis reject kalam, does the universe have a cause, Hanbali school and kalam, Hawking of the origins of the universe, Ibn Hamdan al-Hanbali, Imam Ahmad on kalam, Islamic dialectics, islamic theology, kalam, proofs for God, speculative theology, status of kalam in Islam, the first cause
March 31, 2014

Beyond the Limits of Reason & Rationality

Last year I wrote a series of blogs about Islam, the Qur’an and rationality. Like others who have discussed faith & reason in recent times, I too was motivated by the desire to address a popular fallacy: that religion, or religious belief, is irrational. It wasn’t the only reason why I felt to write about these matters, but it was a Continue reading

contemporary concerns, reason, religion, rationality, theology

al-Bayjuri, beyond formal theological proofs, faith and reason: is there a clash?, Is faith in God irrational?, Is islam irrational?, levels of iman, myths of the New Atheists, not all things can be rationalised, proving the truths of the Qur’an, spiritually witnessing God
December 12, 2013

Was the Universe Expecting Us?

Freeman Dyson, one of the world’s foremost theoretical physicists, wrote: ‘The more I exam the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense knew we were coming,’1 Today scientists don’t hesitate to acknowledge this wondrous fact of how tailor-made to life our universe is. Continue reading

da’wah & muslim apologetics, reason, religion, rationality, science & religion

anthropic principle, cosmos is compelled for life to exist in it, fine tuning of the universe, Freeman Dyson, goldilocks enigma, Islam and astronomy
March 19, 2013

How the Qur’an Justifies Itself

In a previous posting about Islam’s rational monotheism (which can be read here), we saw how the Qur’an utilises a rationalist discourse to substantiate some of its main theological doctrines. As for how the Qur’an vindicates itself and rationalises its claim of truly being the Word of God, it deploys the following line of argument: ♦ Firstly, Continue reading

consider Islam, da’wah & muslim apologetics, qur’an, tafsir, tadabbur, reason, religion, rationality, theology

how does the Quran claim to be God’s word, proof for the truth of the Qur’an, Quran free of contradictions, the Quran’s challenge
March 11, 2013

Islam’s Rational Monotheism in a Nutshell

Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad explains: ‘In the Western milieu, converts to Islam claim that they are attracted to what they regard as its clear, rationally-accessible teachings, unobscured by elaborate mysteries. It is not only insiders who wish to take this view. Non-Muslim academic accounts … now frequently draw attention to the central role of reason Continue reading

consider Islam, da’wah & muslim apologetics, reason, religion, rationality, theology

abdal hakim murad, converts to islam, Islam and reason, islamic theology, Qur’an and rationality, rational arguments in the Qur’an, Tim Winter
March 3, 2013

Reason, Revelation, Religion: How Do They Fit Together?

The Qur’an undoubtedly requires human beings to accept the authority of religion for whatever lies beyond the scope of reason or ‘aql. It never demands that he accept what is against reason. ‘The messengers,’ said Ibn Taymiyyah, ‘came with knowledge that reason is incapable of attaining to: never did they come with what reason deems Continue reading

contemporary concerns, orthodoxy & ahl al-sunnah, reason, religion, rationality, theology

‘aql, Hanbalis and rationalism, Ibn ‘Aqil, Ibn Taymiyyah, intellect, is religion irrational?, reason and religion, refuting atheism

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.