Brief History of Humankind

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

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.

Brief History of Humankind

The End of Man: Homo Sapiens & Spooky Science