Nightwatch In the grave of night my kin are asleep and I am companionable with the echo of the bark in the distance, the lone craft buzzing through the bejewelled cape of black velvet sky. And I am not alone, my curiosity piqued by the sense of the Watcher behind the cloak I stretch...

“Tie your camel and trust in Allah”, that is what the Noble Prophet – salla_llahu ‘alayhi wa sallam – told the Bedouin. How should we view success and failure in Islam?

Every person is deeply untrustworthy. Not because you’re deliberately untrustworthy, but try the best you can, and understand that you will fail.

My Heart Has Gone Everywhere - Poetry by Shahbano Aliani.

What does it mean when we say that wherever you turn there is the Face of Allah? This is a very important matter. We must remind ourselves and understand about what it means.

As human beings we inhabit structures. We inhabit walls. We put ourselves inside confinements and boxes. These confinements and boxes are in two senses. The walls inside ourselves are carried by our internal dialogue, the self-talk that goes on, on an ongoing basis that leeches attention out of the moment that confronts you. The external...

A Poem by Shahbano Aliani.

The immediate benefit of hadra is twofold. The one is the silencing of internal dialogue and the second is the shifting of attention or if you like the assemblage point of attention from behind your eyeballs to behind your solar plexus. These are the two immediate physiological attributes of a good hadra. That's what hadra...

Would you know what you came here for, And be sure what your destiny is?

His mercy isn’t just about what He gives, it’s not just in this affirming way. His mercy is also about what He withholds. He withholds Himself from us, because if He didn’t, we could not be. He withholds the necessary implication of that which is very small in the face of that which is overwhelmingly...