Saima Sher Fazal

On Critical self reflection and thought in Islam: The Islamic paradigm presents to us a mode of critical thinking unique to the modern world. On one hand it beautifies and limits the extent of human rationale and on the other other it persuades him to ponder, explore and question. How so? Allah promises Hidayah to those who are in search of the truth and those who question out of pure intention and not with an intent to find justifications to their own desires. In surah Baqrah and various other surahs of Quran we are shown how the Bani-Israel questioned Musa(AS) not to learn but to justify their own desire. Yet at the same time in various places in the Quran Allah (swt) encourages human thought to ponder, observe and reflect upon his ayahs. Those within the Quran, those outside the Quran and those within our own selves. These ayahs are like indicators pointing like signs towards a truth. Only the one in search of these signs will find them. Sadly though the modern Muslim is to...

Trials, Effect and Tauba! Trials and tribulations are a part of every one's life. Life is not a fairy tale. Bad patches , difficulties are inevitable. A lot of people have different ways of dealing with trials. Some good some, some bad, some completely caught unaware! The ones in which a person gets farther from Allah ji are bad, the ones which make a person closer to Allah ji are good. It sounds quite simple but when a person is actually going through a difficult time it gets tough to understand. Its hard because during that suffering if the person has not strengthened his or her defenses before hand, the chance is that he will  fail and fall into depression, anxiety, frustration or stress. During these phases the ability to think or act sensibly in numbed. What then? PREPARE! Yes, that’s it! Prepare before hand. Strengthen your defenses when you are not in any of the aforementioned phases! We know that Allah swt expects a momin to be well prepared. First of lets ponder...

The ‘Mullah’ and Us!: Keeping the recent scenario in Focus there is a post circulating around on social media. It’s a quote by Ahmed Deedat a renown Muslim scholar from India. It states how an ‘ignorant Muslim’ is dangerous etc.... What’s really interesting is the presumption that maybe ‘we’ do not come under this label of an ‘ignorant Muslim’.  That maybe it takes a certain dress, a beard and a few violent demonstrations on the roads to prove that we are ‘ignorant muslims’ and ‘dangerous’! Let’s compare our educated selves with this ‘ignorant Muslim’. The ‘ignorant Muslim’ comes out in the streets and harms public property. While the educated Muslim sits inside well furnished homes and curses the ‘ignorant’ for disturbing his routine and peace. The ‘ignorant Muslim’ is maybe a Qari, a vegetable vendor, a butcher, a mechanic so on so forth. While the educated Muslim is a doctor, an engineer, a designer, a teacher, a musician or a model/ actor maybe! Th...