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The Humble I

The Humble I

Knowing, Doing, Becoming


Hostility is reason for jihad not disbelief

  • 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

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    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?

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. 

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