In a fiqh lesson last week, someone asked why the Shafiis (and others) say that the reduced blood money [diyah mukhafafah] is spread over three years. This issue is discussed in The Ultimate Conspectus and The Accessible Conspectus at the end of the first section of chapter 10. The reasoning presented in Kifayat al-akhyar is … Read more
Apropos yesterday’s musing on separating [Islamic] culture from Islam: The culture of feeling good about desiring & performing blameworthy acts needs to be separated from Islam—not the culture of feeling good about desiring & performing praiseworthy acts. (Here’s more about feeling good about doing good.) The culture of vice and excess needs to be separated from … Read more
Whenever someone brings up the topic of the need to separate the practices of centuries-old Muslim communities from Islam, I can’t help but wonder why brand new cultural practices are given a pass. Is it the culture obsessed with taking selfies and material consumption that needs to go, or the culture of disciplining the self and … Read more
From Abu Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami’s Infamies of the Soul: Among the infamies of the soul is neglecting to demand more from one’s self concerning one’s actions and statements, and being content with what one’s soul is doing. This condition is treated by the individual demanding an increase in [the quality and then the quantity of] … Read more
The Guardian has run a few articles concerning the World Health Organization’s findings on global pollution [1, 2]. There’s a discussion on reddit’s /r/futurology that is quite informative and scary. I was going to share the articles on Facebook with a few tangential comments. After typing them up, I figured that I would share them … Read more
From my Intensive Animal Farming: Wrongs & Responsibilities paper: Completely eliminating the consumption of animal products is neither a viable or desirable option for Muslims, since animal sacrifice is involved in several religious rites and occasions. Additionally, moderate consumption of meat is a Prophetic norm (Sunnah). So one really cannot make a case that the Sacred … Read more
It is hoped that lab-grown meat will help reduce the significant animal abuse and environmental damage that are inherent to our meat addiction. Lab-grown meat will need to solve several fiqh challenges before Muslims consider it lawful for consumption (halal). One of those challenges is that the source cells need to be grown without using … Read more
Perhaps one the best known Islamic tool for choosing is the Guidance Prayer (ṣalāt al-istikhārah), a prayer named for the supplication for guidance that occurs at its end. The Arabic word “istikhārah” comes from the root “khā-yā-rā.” In his Muʿjam Maqāyīs al-Lughah, Ibn Fāris, the core linguistic sense is to feel favorable or to incline … Read more
Several of the books that I am working on as part of my Shāfiʿī fiqh curriculum include evidence related to fiqh positions. One of the things I watch for is when evidence in later books differs from the evidence in earlier books. Some of these instances involve later scholars citing a hadith as evidence whereas earlier … Read more
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم Q. Is it true that there is agreement amongst the scholars that a woman must cook and clean? A. Not only is this false, but a husband is required to inform his wife that this is not the case. Furthermore, she is entitled to wages for doing so – if she … Read more