Advice to women travelling for `umrah
Women, generally, have always been easy targets of abuse and harassment by misguided, predatory men and hence it has rarely been safe for them to travel alone. That is why the Prophet advised that women when travelling in a potentially unsafe…
Notes on Surah al-Shu’ara’
This surah addresses the intense anxiety that God’s Messenger, salla l-lahu `alayhiwa-sallam, suffered on account of the negative responses he got when he conveyed to the people the message God had commanded him to convey. It seems that he blamed…
Thematic Overview: Surah Al ‘Imran
The tried and tested way of teaching the Qur’an is to work through it verse by verse, striving to deepen our experience of the words of God, and to improve conscience and practice of the religion. That said, there is also some merit in stepping back…
Taqwa
Taqwa is the root of all the virtues that adorn religious life, and the virtues in turn strengthen the root from which they grow. Without taqwa the motivation for religious life is clouded and confused, brittle, vulnerable…
The Prophet as a Teacher
The manners and personal preferences, and also the public judgements and policies, of the Prophet, (s),, have been studied and preserved by devout Muslims throughout the millennium and half since the coming of Islam.
The Sunnah Explains the Qurʾān
They asked: Do you agree with those who say that the entirety of the Sunnah explains the Qurʾān? I replied: Who am I to agree or disagree with the Imāms of the ummah? I am merely a student who stole a seat at their table, who seeks to learn something from them…
Sunnah and Ḥadīth
They asked: What is the meaning of sunnah? The technical meaning of the term is a way or practice that was established and pursued by the Prophet, peace be upon him, and then by the Rightly Guided Caliphs, the rest of the Companions…
Stress and Anger
Stress is often, not always, the result of overburdening a system so that it cannot function normally. In extreme cases a person under stress is unable to rest or sleep, even when they know that rest and sleep are what they urgently need.