The Humble I

Knowing, Doing, Becoming

ikhlas

September 28, 2026

Faith, Tolkien & Poetry

Most of us do not read much poetry. Perhaps we imagine it to be difficult, obscure, or simply something belonging to another age. Yet a good poem can sometimes say in five or six lines what prose struggles to say in five or six pages. A few carefully chosen words can stay with us for… Continue reading

poetry, limericks, literature

ikhlas, Islam and poetry, Islam and The Lord of the Rings, Islamic themes in the life of Aragorn, sabr, tawakkul, Tolkien and Islam
June 28, 2013

Sincerity: How to Empty the Heart for God?

A well-known hadith says that: ‘God declared: I am so self-sufficient that I am in no need of any partner. Whoever does an action for someone else’s sake as well as Mine, will have that action renounced by Me to him who he associated with Me.’1 That God is in no need of partners brings us to the all-important virtue… Continue reading

sufism, suluk & spirituality

being sincere, eliminating insincerity, hypocrisy, ikhlas, Islam and the question of sincerity, munafiq, ostentation, riya, showing off, sincerity, sincerity to God, what is sincerity

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.

ikhlas

Faith, Tolkien & Poetry

Sincerity: How to Empty the Heart for God?