The Humble I

Knowing, Doing, Becoming

Muslim controversialists as attention seekers

March 5, 2021

Thriving on Fitnah: The Muslim Controversialist!

THE GREAT SAGE AND scholar of early Islam, al-Hasan al-Basri, once remarked: ‘The concern of the scholar is to cultivate, the concern of the foolish is to [merely] narrate.’1 One hadith foretells: ‘There shall come upon people years of deceit in which the liar will be believed, the truthful one disbelieved, the treacherous will be… Continue reading

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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.

Muslim controversialists as attention seekers

Thriving on Fitnah: The Muslim Controversialist!