Living For Islam

THIS MONTH, THE British government has begun releasing prisoners early in an effort to ease overcrowding. The latest release arrangements are expected to affect around 4,500 prisoners between October 2026 and June 2027. The prison system has been struggling with a lack of space, alongside problems including violence, drug use and inadequate opportunities for rehabilitation. … Continue reading Britain’s Prison Crisis: What If We’re Asking the Wrong Question?

BELIEF IN THE Hereafter is not simply an abstract belief about what happens after we die. The Qur’an repeatedly brings us back to the Last Day because what we believe about our final destination shapes how we live today, the choices we make and the way we judge ourselves. The opening ayat of Surah An-Naml … Continue reading Why the Qur’an Keeps Returning to the Hereafter

SOME EVENTS ARE so overwhelming that they shake something inside us. Gaza has been one of those events. For many Muslims, what has happened over the past three years has not simply produced grief and anger. It has unsettled assumptions that once seemed secure. Assumptions about international law, human rights, Western governments, the institutions of … Continue reading Gaza Has Shaken Us. What Will It Produce?

WHAT HAPPENS TO a people after the tyrant is gone? It is easy to imagine that liberation is the end of the struggle. The tyrant falls. The prisons open. Fear begins to lift. People celebrate in the streets. A chapter of oppression that seemed as though it would never end is finally closed. But the … Continue reading The Tyrant Is Gone. Now What?

THEY CALL SARAJEVO the Jerusalem of Europe. I understood why when I walked through the old city. A mosque. A church. A synagogue. Not separated by miles, but by metres. The Gazi Husrev-beg Masjid stands at the heart of the old Ottoman city. A short walk away are Orthodox and Catholic churches, and nearby is the … Continue reading The Jerusalem of Europe

WE ADOPTED A cat this week. A nine-month-old domestic shorthair with dark stripes running along her sleek brown-grey coat, in a pattern known as a mackerel, or fishbone, tabby. She has started to explore her new home, walking softly across the floor with her tail held high one moment, disappearing under the bed or settling … Continue reading Our Cat Came from Baghdad

AUTUMN HAS ALWAYS been my favourite season. It brings back my earliest memories of childhood. The chill in the morning air, the smell of the earth, the change in colour all around, the geese honking as they flew south. As I have grown older, it has become more poignant. I still love all those things … Continue reading The Autumn of Life

THERE ARE TIMES when I look at the world around me and wonder if this really is the world we live in? War. Destruction. Displacement. Climate change. Famine. Hatred. People being killed because of who they are. Children growing up surrounded by violence. Vast wealth existing alongside terrible deprivation. Human beings doing things to one … Continue reading When Corruption Becomes Visible

I RECENTLY CAME across something in Bangladesh that surprised me. Doctors and diagnostic centres are prohibited from disclosing the sex of an unborn child for non-medical reasons. The issue reached the Bangladesh High Court through a public-interest petition filed in 2020. The Directorate General of Health Services subsequently produced a national guideline aimed at preventing … Continue reading Why Does a Muslim Country Need a Law to Protect Daughters?

THERE ARE VERSES in the Qur’an that we hear so often that familiarity can make us forget how extraordinary they are. Surah al-Rūm, verse 21, is perhaps one of them. وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ أَنْ خَلَقَ لَكُم مِّنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ أَزْوَاجًا لِّتَسْكُنُوا إِلَيْهَا وَجَعَلَ بَيْنَكُم مَّوَدَّةً وَرَحْمَةً ۚ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ لِّقَوْمٍ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ And among His Signs … Continue reading When Marriage Becomes an Āyah