hiatus

Assalaamu alaykum
I have not posted in a while, and I am not intending to start up again any time soon. I will keep this blog up for now, mostly for my own benefit. In the meantime, may God guide you in His ways, ameen.

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a follower of a follower

I think about the Sahaba a lot. I wonder what they were like, and how they lived. I try to make sense out of why they killed each other, and if that means anything for me today. In short, I don’t turn away from the complexity of trying to understand the lives they lived. I [...]

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hope

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part of something

I visited my ancestors today. John and Mary Coolidge came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. They passed away in 1691. It is because of them that I was born in this land. Here lies the body of my honored grandfather.
 

 
One of their descendants, Joseph Coolidge, was working in the field one day when [...]

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the deen as triage

While driving in my car last night, it hit me. After so many years of struggling and striving, there is much to be thankful for, and may God be praised for it. And yet, I can see so clearly all the failures, all the wounds, all the mistakes, all the trauma. If you looked at [...]

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theology and history

Perhaps a few years after I became Muslim, I wondered to myself, “How would a Muslim interpret an important historical event that did not really involve Muslims? How, for example, would Muslims interpret the Civil War.” That thought, as with many others, eventually found an answer, through the grace of God. Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural [...]

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Relevant and Inspiring Tradition

This song was originally written in Arabic, and translated into English by our teacher, Shaykh Abdul Hakim Murad (may Allah preserve him and continue to benefit us by him, ameen)

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Is capitalism “Islamic?”

Everybody has been talking about the financial crisis lately. Many Muslims have expressed the idea that “Islamic economics” might be an alternative to the alternative system of global finance, and that it wouldn’t be vulnerable to the same sort of problems that we are seeing everyday in the news. Whatever the case may be, in [...]

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reminders

The Qur’an says, “So remind, for the reminder benefits.” (87.9)
It’s after Ramadan, and I am listening to some music. Decidedly, not the most spiritual exercise. I admit it. But Allah’s signs are everywhere.
I am listening to one of my favorite bands, As I Lay Dying. They are a metal band, but they are also Christians.
And [...]

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Subtle Mistakes

someone else wrote this…beautiful, masha’Allah
“praying for His and your forgiveness for:
every lie told
every promise broken
every trust misplaced
every time I put on airs
every time I did not listen
every phoney laugh
every greedy glance
every minute waisted
every truth hidden
every secret revealed 
every hard earned dollar misused
every penny of debt unpaid
every request forgotten
every bit of worry
every bit of regret
every bit of [...]

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