Politics, tech and media issues from a Muslim perspective
William Dalrymple (of White Mughals fame) has contributed a piece to today’s Guardian, “Saudi Arabia created the monster now devouring it”. It gives the usual account of the fitna caused by Wahhabi missionaries, and...
I wasn’t able to blog the last few days, because of long work hours and being too tired yesterday (after a run to Milton Keynes on Friday evening, not getting back until after 11pm,...
I was thoroughly glad to find a piece in the Guardian which told us it was OK to be indifferent as to whether “our boys” win the European championship this month or not. ‘It’s...
The East London Mosque (one of the few mosques in London which is able to give the adhan over the loudspeaker) has just opened its new extension, which can hold 10,000 worshippers and has...
A topic close to my heart even though I’m not (yet, insha Allah) a parent: The Secular Case for Home Schooling by Diana West (never heard of this journo before, my apologies if she...
I’ve just come back from a Respect rally at Friends’ House (a Quaker building) near Euston station in Central London. The speakers were George Galloway (of course), Yvonne Ridley, Anas Altikriti, Anjum Mirza of...
In response to the allegations of “kufr akbar” against anyone voting in the coming elections, I found two pages containing the opinions of various Islamic scholars on voting at the IACN web site in...
Black Information Link have published this article on tactics the BNP are using to up their share of the vote in the opinion polls in the run-up to this Thursday’s elections. They have also...
News has reached us that Shaikh Abdul-Rahman al-Shaghouri, a major shaikh of Damascus, has passed away. Besides being a shaikh of ‘aqida and fiqh, he was also a renowned Sufi shaikh and was the...
I wondered how long it would take before someone said that Ronnie Reagan wasn’t the great statesman some sections of the media have made him out to be since he finally snuffed it last...
I’ve got a rather uncared-for Miscarriages of Justice page which I may have transferred to Blogistan but the link on my home page still points to my old Geocities site. It gives details of...
Another week, another Respect-bashing piece from a centre-left journo in the British press. The usual culprits are Nick Cohen and David Aaronovitch. (You can read the latest Aaronovitch piece here at the Guardian’s site.)...
The fatwa I requested from Islam Online has been given … Dr Monzer Kahf, “a prominent economist and counselor”, wrote that it is permissible to lie in order to catch a criminal, but not...
Last week I decided to go and join my parents briefly on their holiday in the Lake District. For those that don’t know, the Lake District is a part of north-west England, and it’s...
Recently we all got a pamphlet through our door entitled London’s Elections – The Candidates with the manifestos of all the people putting themselves forward to be our mayor on June 10th. The candidates...
It’s 10 days to go until the election insha Allah, and today I went to two separate Respect engagements – a stall they were running in Kingston Green Fair which was here in Kingston...
So, Abu Hamza’s finally been taken off the streets, not because of David Blunkett’s efforts to take his citizenship away so they can bury him alive in Belmarsh, but because the US government has...
I’ve just done two more days of driving trucks around – yesterday it was in a sort of anticlockwise circular tour of Surrey county, from Croydon to Weybridge, Egham, Woking, Guildford, then down to...
If you’ve been reading carefully you’ll have noticed that one of our “correspondents” has quoted a hadith to the effect that “religion is the way we conduct ourselves toward others …”. I didn’t realise...
Now that Michael Moore and his film have won the Palme D’Or in Cannes, I thought it was time to posit this possibility. We hear quite often that Kerry’s main draw is that he...