False temples and Jesus mosques
We are told in the New Testament that Saint Paul used the Greeks’ own monument to an unknown God to preach Christ to them. He spoke of becoming a Jew to the Jews, a Gentile to the Gentiles:"…so that by all possible means I might save some" (1 Corinthians 9:22).Methods haven’t changed much. Christian evangelists [...]
Plotting Islamism’s success
Islamism is really quite an obscure noun. It means different things to different people, so a definition must be had. Essentially, it refers to a set of political ideologies derived from an intensely selective reading of Islam. Daniel Pipes (a man Muslims find fashionable to hate) describes it as a movement that: …turns the bits and [...]
The fuss about traditional Islam
Humble beads- victim of ideology. Traditional Islam opposes ideological Islam. The latter seeks to undermine Islam’s rich and diverse intellectual heritage by severing faith from its historical context. Traditional Islam, on the other hand, refers not only to the religion’s origins in Mecca and Medina, but also to its later development by Persians, Mongols, Indians, Caucasians, [...]
My first time in a mosque
I visited Singapore two years ago, and was impressed by the strong Muslim presence there. They are ethnic Malays, whose ancestors had been introduced to Islam by Sufis. A majority of them adhere to Imam Shafi’i’s School of Jurisprudence, but also follow a set of customs that is known as adat. While the Malays make [...]
The Officially Sanctioned Dictionary
I have always admired how most Salafists seem to talk and think alike. Out of the 6346 verses in the Quran and the millions of ahadith (sayings of the Prophet), they even seem to quote the same ones. Maybe there’s a microchip implanted in their brains. Every night, during ishaak prayers, satellite transmissions apprise the [...]
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