Even where people are relatively comfortable, the norm of doing charity remains visible and beneficial – even in Muslim communities in the UK, you will see children running around with plates of food for the neighbours if something nice has been cooked.

It was a depressing and distressing experience for me, at a recent visit to a mosque here in the north of the UK, to hear the call to prayer and then observe that some Muslims did not respond by joining in the lines for the prayer. Rather, they formed…

The theory of evolution of all species from a common ancestor, with no special distinction for humankind, spills over from the domain and concern of specialists in biology. It does so because the theory is often promoted as something we have to believe.

God says He does not love that men say what they do not do (al-Saff). This means two things. (a) Be careful of the language you use. Don’t be like those poets who say things that sound very impressive but are impossible to do…

In the opening line, the words are related to the verb naza`a, meaning to drag away or strip out forcibly. Other common words in Arabic derived from the same root include meanings like struggle, death struggle, the agony of death.