Visit to the Shrine of Mawlana Jalal al-Din al-Rumi in Konya
Among the most significant artifacts is a handwritten manuscript of the Masnavi, an experience that evoked a sense of profound reverence. While I possess a facsimile of this manuscript in Oxford, witnessing the original illuminated its historical and spiritual significance.
Men don’t own women
Shared Responsibilities of Men and Women “The believing men and believing women are supporters of one another. They enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong, establish prayer, give zakat, and obey Allah and His Messenger. Those – Allah will have mercy upon them....
Maqasid al-Shari`ah
Introduction to the Maqasid al-Shari`ah The maqasid al-shari`ah are intellectual abstractions of general principles derived from particular, historical rulings in Islamic jurisprudence. The mental operation involved in such abstraction consists of extracting an...
The Classical persistent western attitude to the natural world
1- The natural world is world as given. This world includes the human being before it is influenced by other human beings. In other words, the natural world includes the human being as an animal, not as an human. 2- This distinction between animal and human echoes...
The Qur’an should not be valued as merely a sacred object
1. The Qur’an as Self-Consistent and Coherent Guidance (1) Allah says in the Qur’an about the Qur’an, that it is a self-consistent, coherent message from the Creator to the most favoured among His creatures. He also says of it that it is the final revelation of His...
Muqaddimah of ibn al-Salah
Kitab Ma’rifat anwa’ Ilm al-Hadith, better known as the Muqaddimah of Ibn al-Salah, is a well-known intermediate level text on the science of Usul al-hadith. For students familiar with the Arabic language and have covered beginners texts in hadith methodology, this...
Modern science seeks power, not wisdom
Narrow Focus on Causes and Effects Modern science is dedicated to explaining events and processes in the natural world, most of the time by means of some degree of mastery of the chain of the causes and effects that lead to specific events and processes. The problem...
Balancing General Principles and Specific Rulings in Islamic Law
Over-Defining a Concept Through Inference Many scholars infer from instances of Qur’anic or Prophetic ruling what they think is the common or universal principle which governs these rulings. For example, the notion that ‘the state of woman is covering’ is derived from...