Principles and applications
Both general principles and concrete applications must be learnt together for creation to fulfil its Creator’s purpose. If you don’t learn how to interpret an engineering design into an engineered object, then all your engineering skills will be spent on repeating a limited number of engineered objects.
Dajjal
There is no reliable information about Dajjal that is sufficient responsibly to change your behavior or your policies. What, then, is the point of the Prophet’s giving any information, however limited, about Dajjal? The answer must begin by reflecting on what need people have to know something about such matters.
Settling disputes between Muslims in the UK
The primary function of courts in any jurisdiction, Islamic or otherwise, is to settle disputes according to rules that both disputing parties know and agree. One of the main functions of the state is to uphold the authority of the courts…
Women doing qada’ of their missed fasts
Can women who missed some days of their their fasting in Ramadan due to menstruation or post-natal bleeding combine the intention of making up the missed days of fasting in Ramadan with the commended six days fasting in Shawwal?
Fasting six days of Shawwal
Your question was: How important is fasting six days in Shawwal? My response: Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, may Allah be pleased with him, reported from Allah’s Messenger, peace be upon him, that he said: “For one who observed the fast of Ramadan…
Religious emotion and self-knowledge
People often confuse the intensity of an experience or feeling with the reality and authenticity of that experience or feeling. This applies very much to religious and devotional exercises. Both these can induce states of minds like…
Manners in Islam
There is no rigid definition; it is relative to time and place and occasion. Nevertheless, we can apply a couple of test questions that, I find, always give a pretty good indication of what the level should be. First, I ask: am I behaving like this…
Don’t Waste Ramadan
The Prophet (s) said that he was sent to make things easy for the believers. His sunnah in deciding the times of the daily prayers, and the beginning and end of Ramadan, is meant to make things easy so that the people would come together…