SURAH YUSUF MOVES at pace. Betrayal, enslavement, false accusation, imprisonment… the narrative barely pauses. Then comes the dream interpretation, the summons to the king, the vindication, the release, and finally the extraordinary elevation: a young boy once sold for a handful of coins now holds the keys to the storehouses of Egypt. And it is … Continue reading The Pause at the Peak
ON THE 26TH of March, Bangladesh marks its Independence Day; a struggle born of dignity, rights, and self-determination. Fifty-five years later, let us stop speaking in slogans and ask a question that cannot be avoided: What is the value of a human life in Bangladesh today? Because once again, people are dead. A bus has … Continue reading 26 March: Independence or the Failure to Protect Our People?
EVERY YEAR, AS Ramadhan ends, I watch it happen. The sun goes down on that last day, and something shifts. Something grows distant, in a way you can’t quite put your finger on. And then, so gradually nobody notices, the days return to normal. By mid-Shawwal, we just feel… Less connected. For years, I thought … Continue reading After Ramadhan
I WAS FLYING back to London from Istanbul some years ago on a British Airways flight. The back of the plane was full of families returning from holiday, the clamour of children, the negotiating of small needs, the particular exhaustion of parents at the end of a journey. A flight attendant was speaking to a … Continue reading Motherhood Is Not the Trap
THERE ARE MOMENTS in history that expose the true condition of a nation. What we are witnessing today at Masjid al-Aqsa is one such moment. For the first time since the occupation of Jerusalem in 1967, and possibly since the liberation by Salahuddin from the Crusaders in 1187CE, the blessed mosque has been closed during … Continue reading Al-Aqsa in Chains
Eid Mubarak, dear brothers and sisters. Alhamdulillah for the Ramadhan we were given. A month ago, I asked you to go deeper. To consider the big questions, to hold the Qur’an not just in your hands but in your thinking, to look honestly at where the ummah stands and how we got there. I asked … Continue reading Eid Mubarak
THERE ARE MOMENTS when you look at the world and realise you have run out of reactions. The grief has been grieved too many times. The anger has nowhere left to go. The shock of one week becomes the ordinary of the next, and somewhere in that process something in you goes numb, not because … Continue reading The Affair Belongs to Him
EVERY YEAR, IN Ramadhan, I sit down and calculate my zakat. The calculation itself is not the hard part. Determine the nisab, assess eligible wealth, apply the 2.5%, the fiqh is clear, the method established. Within an hour, I have a figure. Then the real difficulty begins. How do I distribute it? Who do I … Continue reading Zakah Without a System
THE THEME OF the United Nations International Women’s Day 2026 is “Rights. Justice. Action.” Few would dispute the importance of these ideals. The question Muslims are entitled to ask is whether the framework promoting them is actually capable of delivering them, or whether these words have become a slogan, selectively applied abroad and largely undelivered … Continue reading The Slogan and the Silence
ON THE 17TH of Ramadhan, a little more than three hundred men stood on a plain called Badr and faced an army more than three times their size. They were fasting. We think of Ramadhan today as a month of withdrawal. More prayer. More Qur’an. Slower days. A turning inward. And none of that is … Continue reading Ahad
Living For Islam 