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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
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Islam in a Nutshell
This is a Five Minute Meditation on the khutbat al-hajah – the “sermon done for a need.” The Prophet, upon whom be peace, usually recited it in his Friday and marriage sermons. Although it is short and brief, Shaykh Surkheel Abu Aaliyah discusses how it is actually an on-point, profound summary of the whole of Continue reading
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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
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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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The Fatihah: Openings of Timeless Truths
THE OPENING CHAPTER (surah) takes the form of a short prayer, and serves as a précis or summary of the Holy Qur’an. It has other names, such as umm al-kitab – the ‘mother’ or ‘essence’ of the Book; al-shifa’ – ‘the healing’; and also al-sab‘ al-mathani – ‘the seven oft-repeated [verses]’. Revealed very early on in Makkah, Continue reading
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A Brief Word On Sufis, Sufism & Spiritual Wayfaring
Far from being foreign to Islam, sufism – the science of spiritual excellence (‘ilm al-ihsan) and purification of the soul (tazkiyat al-nafs) – is a central aspect of the religion. In fact, it is its very core or heart. This is especially true when such sufism reflects the spirit of the early traditionalists or ahl Continue reading
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Read Through Tafsir or Just Ponder the Qur’an?
I RECENTLY MET A brother who I’d not seen since the late ’90s. He was eager to remind me of an incident I’d more or less forgotten about. I was working in an Islamic bookshop at the time. He came in to buy the ten volume translation of Tafsir Ibn Kathir Abridged. At the time Continue reading