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Abu Aaliyah

Modernity and Compulsory Schooling: Theft of Children’s Minds?

By Abu Aaliyah

“So all in all, Islamic education – at its root – is about growing in beauty as a person; as a believer; as a worshipper of God. At its heart is the imparting of meaning. Both Muslim parents, and Muslim teachers in Muslim schools, must understand that if home-schooling or Muslims schools are to be real  alternatives to state schools, they cannot follow the very same paradigm of schooling chiefly in terms of job prospects…”

Reading Qur’an While Not Knowing the Meaning: Is There Reward?

By Surkheel Sharif (Abu Aaliyah)

“It is not unusual to hear scholars liken reading the Quran without knowing the meaning of what is being recited, to a sick patient for whom a doctor writes a prescription. Yet instead of understanding what the prescription says, or acting on what it requires, the patient simply keeps reading the prescription over and over again; making such recitation an end in itself…”

Muslim Controversialists: Thriving on Fitnah on Social Media

By Shaykh Abu Aaliyah Sukheel
“Turning Facebook into Disgracebook, or turning Instagram into Fitnahgram, may help gain us a larger following or more likes. It may be a winning formula in terms of our murky desires for self-promotion. It might even assuage an ego desperate for attention and self-glory. But such insincerity will corrupt hearts and damage whatever little relationship we have with our Lord…”

Islam, Freedom, Modernity: Mastery of the Self v. Slavery to the Self

By Abu Aaliyah
“By recognising that the divinely-given code of life exists to protect us, bring out the best in us, and help our Adamic potential flower to its fullest, we can attain balance and contentment in this life, and endless joy in the next. In fact, if anything, the sheer number of laws, regulations and prohibitions which the modern state constrains its citizens with – all in the name of progress and the public interest – is far far larger than the corpus of laws or duties the believer is required to uphold…”

On British Muslims & Racism: Do Black Lives Matter?

By Abu Aaliyah

“Racism affects all people of colour. But when it comes to black people, they face a unique anti-black prejudice as the ultimate Other, propagated both by white majorities and even other ethnic minorities. As a marginalised community South Asians, no doubt, have their own prejudices thrown their way. But they are not the same lived experiences as that of Black people. And while it can be easy to lump everyone together and perceive ourselves as having a shared trauma, statistics show that this equivalence is not really true…”

The soul of Islam is a vigilant and mindful heart

By Abu Aaliyah
“Revelation tells us that muraqabah, vigilance of Allah, is one of the sublimest spiritual stations. We are told too that habituating our heart to such vigilance requires training the heart gradually and step-by-step. Masters of the heart instruct us to accustom ourselves to being mindful and shy of Allah, even if it be for short periods at a time – persevering in this even in our day-to-day affairs, let alone when engaged in acts of worship – until such mindfulness or vigilance becomes part and parcel of our nature; a habit of our heart..”

Sacred tranquillity in our age of distress and anxiety

By Abu Aaliyah
“For a Muslim, the Qur’an is a powerful shifa’, or healing: And We reveal of the Qur’an that which is a healing and a mercy to the believers. [Q.17:82] And whilst the primary healing of the Qur’an is in curing the intellectual doubts, falsehoods or half truths concerning God, humanity’s true purpose, life’s essential meaning, and our ultimate end; and in providing humanity with a practical and liveable morality suitable for all times or places,..”

The Goal of the Shari‘ah is Justice, Not Equality

By Abu Aaliyah
“IN SPEAKING OF JUSTICE, many well-intended Muslims are unconsciously secularised. For their discourse about justice (Ar. ‘adl, qist) is so often scarred by failing to grasp its Quranic essence: ‘To put a thing in its rightful place.’1 Which is to say, justice is to give things their proper due – at the due time, the due place, and in due measure.

This requires possessing knowledge about the value and measure of things, as Islam assigns to them, so as to give them their due. ‘Hence,’ Ibn al-Qayyim wrote, ‘knowledge and justice are the root of every good, while injustice and ignorance are the root of every evil.’2”