Men on these platforms will need to determine if we are going to be builders or critics. One thing I’ve noticed about many online religious personalities, whether Salafi, neo-traditionalist, progressive, or otherwise is that they gradually become mirror images of one another. The Salafi refutation account is obsessed with exposing Ash’aris. The Ash’ari refutation account is obsessed with exposing Salafis. The traditionalist refutation account is obsessed with exposing feminists and so on. These are different ideologies but the same emotional ecosystem.
I am not saying that absolutely no one needs to be criticized or even refuted.
But if all the people you criticize on your platform disappear tomorrow, would you still have a compelling reason to exist online? Why does your platform need an enemy? Why does it depend on the next controversy? Why has your religious identity become organized around opposition instead of cultivation? These are two very different models of masculine leadership. From personal experience, if ten of these brothers are online cutting up, eight have absolutely no connection to a community off-line. Community to many have become like gaming. They’re building absolutely nothing in real life. The offline life is much harder.

Islam does not require performative misery. The logic: “If someone is suffering, I should not enjoy anything.” This is a subtle secular asceticism that has emerged in modernity.

Allah says:

قُلْ مَنْ حَرَّمَ زِينَةَ اللَّهِ الَّتِي أَخْرَجَ لِعِبَادِهِ

“Say: Who has forbidden the adornment of Allah which He has produced for His servants?” (7:32).

This is a verse for all times. It’s not abrogated. The Islamic world view is that we should always enjoy Allah’s blessings but don’t allow those blessings to cause us to forget Allah and forget others who are suffering.

Guilt and compassion are different. People often confuse the two. Guilt asks the question: “How bad can I feel about the state of the world?” It accomplishes absolutely nothing. In fact, it’s from the nafs.

A compassionate person can take a nice vacation south of France (if that’s their preference and luxury), and still donate generously to support relief efforts, use their connections to solve problems and make dua. This is exponentially better and more productive than the depressed doom scroller that end up being a killjoy wherever they go.

We are students of history and if one reads enough history, one realizes the world has never been free of suffering, not even at the height of the Beloved’s ﷺ prophethood. Yes you can read a hagiographical version that tells you otherwise but it isn’t factually correct. Muslims in Madinah were eating fruit from their plush date farms and inviting guests for tea while Muslims in Makka were suffering. They also continued to go to work in the markets each day to make a dignified living for their families.

Islam does not ask us to carry the emotional burden of every tragedy to the point of paralysis. Nor does it permit heedlessness toward the suffering of others. Wealth and enjoyment is not the same as indifference. A well rested believer can do much more for this ummah than the burnt out and depressed doom scroller. The doom scroller remains resentful and exhausted. We can’t build a civilization if we are always crushed by suffering.

Happy New Year—and happy civilization building.

Some of the Companions saw a young man hurrying off to work with energy and determination. One of them remarked, “If only that effort were spent in the path of Allah.” The Prophet ﷺ immediately corrected them:

إِنْ كَانَ يَسْعَى عَلَى وَلَدِهِ صِغَارًا فَهُوَ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ ، وَإِنْ كَانَ خَرَجَ يَسْعَى عَلَى أَبَوَيْنِ شَيْخَيْنِ كَبِيرَيْنِ فَفِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ ، وَإِنْ كَانَ خَرَجَ يَسْعَى عَلَى نَفْسِهِ لِيَعِفَّهَا فَفِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ ، وَإِنْ كَانَ خَرَجَ يَسْعَى عَلَى أَهْلِهِ فَفِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ ، وَإِنْ كَانَ خَرَجَ يَسْعَى رِياءً وَ مُفَاخُرًا فَفِي سَبِيلِ الشَّيْطَان

“If he goes out working to provide for his young children, then he is in the path of Allah. If he goes out working to support his elderly parents, then he is in the path of Allah. If he goes out working to preserve his own dignity and independence, then he is in the path of Allah. If he goes out working to provide for his family, then he is in the path of Allah. But if he goes out seeking status, showing off, or boasting before others, then he is in the path of Satan.”

Allah places these mundane worldly acts in the category of fi sabilillah so long as they’re done in pursuit of His ﷻ pleasure. You can get a normal job and be a normal person.

If it is Allah we seek, there are many roads that lead to His love. One of them is simply to be a good Muslim: learn what every Muslim is required to know, worship Allah faithfully, strive for good character, and leave matters beyond your depth to those qualified to speak about them. Earn an honest living, be kind to your spouse, raise your children to know and love their Lord, serve others in whatever ways you can, and let your actions speak louder than your words. Much of what Allah loves is found in these ordinary acts done with sincerity and consistency.

-Al-Tabarani, Mu‘jam al-Saghir

إِنَّ لِجَسَدِكَ عَلَيْكَ حَقًّا

“Your body has a right over you.”

Good sleep and sunlight will improve your ibadah and spiritual health. Sleep is a spiritual practice. You pray with your body. You fast with your body. You recite Quran with your body. When the rights of the body are neglected, temptations are harder to resist. Khushu and patience decrease. Irritability increases. Get what your body need and don’t let anyone shame you for being human. Your body is not an obstacle to your worship; it is one of the primary instruments of your worship. Don’t mistake burnout and exhaustion for piety.

:

لَا تَزُولُ قَدَمَا عَبْدٍ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ حَتَّى يُسْأَلَ عَنْ عُمْرِهِ فِيمَا أَفْنَاهُ، وَعَنْ عِلْمِهِ فِيمَ فَعَلَ، وَعَنْ مَالِهِ مِنْ أَيْنَ اكْتَسَبَهُ وَفِيمَ أَنْفَقَهُ، وَعَنْ جِسْمِهِ فِيمَ أَبْلَاهُ

“The feet of a servant will not move on the Day of Resurrection until he is asked about his life and how he spent it, about his knowledge and what he did with it, about his wealth, how he earned it and how he spent it and about his body and how he wore it out.”

Take note of the wording:

و عن جِسْمِهِ فِيمَ أَبْلَاه

“About his body and in what he wore it out.”

The blessing itself rarely destroys us, forgetting its Giver does. A person who truly feels his dependence on Allah has little room for self admiration and arrogance.

First Principles Thinking

The Quran continually calls people back to fundamentals: Who created you? Who sustains you? What is your purpose? Rather than accepting inherited assumptions “we found our fathers doing this”, it asks people to reason from foundational truths.

Thinking of unfriending anyone that drinks and posts pictures of their matcha. Keep your sins private. Some things are between you and your Lord. I’m not going back and forth with you either.

ادفن وجودك في أرض الخمول، فما نبت مما لم يدفن لا يتم نتاجه

“Bury your existence in the soil of obscurity, for whatever grows without first being buried never reaches full fruition.”

- Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh al-Sakandarī

Is your work capable of surviving attention? Some of your most consequential work should develop away from public visibility. Learn to retreat, put your head down and work (family, work and community initiatives). In 5-10 years people will say; “He came out of nowhere.” In those years away one is focused not on looking or appearing productive or even being seen, but on producing roots and a sustained body of thought and work that’s capable of surviving attention.

Many American Muslims that planned to see an eclipse are not heedless. These beautiful people are taking their children to watch something extraordinary. They’re learning the astronomy behind it. They’re gathering with their neighbors and marveling at Allah’s ﷻ creation. It would be wise to build on that wonder and not diagnose this as ghaflah. You can pray and take out your telescopes, people. A lot of spiritual lessons can be drawn from wonderment and reflecting on the marvels of creation. The eclipse can awaken a reverent fear, magnification of God, wonder, gratitude, contemplation and our dependence on Him ﷻ. There is no conflict between religious reverence and human wonder. For some, the only spiritual register they have is exhortations around disruption, fear and repentance.

DAY 2: Improving life for people

The Prophet ﷺ said, “I have seen a person enjoying himself in Paradise because of the tree that he cut from the path which was a source of inconvenience for the people” (Sahih Muslim)

Junūn

الْعِلْمُ بِلَا عَمَلٍ جُنُونٌ، وَالْعَمَلُ بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ لَا يَكُونُ

“Knowledge that never becomes action is madness. And action without knowledge has no sound foundation.”

— Imām al-Ghazālī, Ayyuhā al-Walad

Consider just turning up the heat and execute rather than overthinking, over planning and needing several more pieces of advice. You don’t always need to know more to start moving. You don’t need another book, more research. You already know enough to just act. That decision just needs to be made and that difficult conversation just needs to be had. Learn enough to act intelligently then let that action reveal what you still need to learn. Knowledge has to make the transition to execution. Your excess in the other way is sheer madness.

Water is necessary for life. Because without water, there is no coffee and without coffee, I might kill you.

The minbar is weighty. Being a khatib is a tremendous responsibility. If you bore people, scare them, put them to sleep, or make Islam feel completely disconnected from their actual lives, you’re not just giving a bad speech. You may be driving people away from the masjid and from the Deen itself. Most khatibs don’t even realize they maybe held accountable for that. Islam has a lot of meaningful things to say about people’s marriages, their fears and doubts, their work, and the society they live in. The minbar is an amanah. It is not a weekly opportunity to repeat and recycle information because you didnt make time to prepare, display what you studied, or deliver disjointed and cathartic reminders. The khatib is responsible for helping people hear the guidance of Allah within the reality they are actually facing.

I’ve a confession to make.

I’ve lived with OCD for years. I was diagnosed several years ago, although, truthfully, the signs were there long before that.

It affects how I begin my mornings, how I structure my day, where I choose to meet people, and even the places I’m willing to travel. It can make me restless, irritable, and unable to focus. Some days, I cannot function properly until I’ve satisfied the compulsion.

I’ve tried to manage it quietly, but the people closest to me already know. At this point in my life, I think it’s time to stop hiding.

Obsessive Coffee Disorder is real.

There is no known cure. The only way I can manage it is by having another cup.

Some reflections on my 24th wedding anniversary.

Traditionally, marriage was understood as something you entered and served. It was never supposed to be continuously evaluated according to how well it served you.

Today, many marriage problems come from people asking,

“How does this marriage make me feel?”

Instead, we need to go back to basics and ask,

“What is marriage for?”

Marriage aims at three great goods:

1. Offspring
2. Fidelity
3. The permanent bond between spouses.

Husband and wife owe their children formation and provision. They owe each other exclusive fidelity and particular love.
And they form a permanent domestic society in which each assists the other.

Marriage is ordered primarily toward the good of children and the family. Secondarily, it’s for the spouses’ mutual assistance and protection in spiritual and practical matters.

So your marriage isn’t ONE relationship in the family alongside your relationships with the children but THE relationship that gives the family its form. Protecting the romantic bond with your spouse is part of your duty to your family, not withdrawal from family life.

Marriage has a purpose outside the feelings of the couple. Children and family continuity and legacy. Mutual sanctification and service. The common good.

All this means marriage gives the spouses something to build together. But when the couple themselves become the ultimate purpose of marriage, every disappointment is seen as threatening the institution itself. They forget the bigger purpose.

Traditional marriage didn’t reduce love to affection. You owe your spouse patience, fidelity, provision, tenderness or sacrifice precisely when you don’t feel inclined to give them.

Marital obligations are matters of justice arising from the marriage covenant.

Love creates obligations.

And obligations can often be an affront to your feelings in a way that helps you grow in virtue.

Once you accept that divorce isn’t an option, as I have, you see things from the perspective of permanence.

And that changes your behaviour in the present. When divorce is an option, conflict becomes partly a calculation:
“Would I be happier elsewhere?”

If you understand your marriage is permanent, the central question becomes:

“How do we make this good?”

Marriage creates something that didn’t previously exist.

Not merely romantic companionship but a household, children, kinship, inheritance and memory and obligations across generations. So it’s fundamentally generative. And we must remember that what’s being generated belongs not exclusively to the husband and wife but also partly to society and posterity.

Marriage isn’t a private project. The sexes were once understood as complementary rather than interchangeable.

Of course, some societies sometimes distorted this into domination, but our tradition gives no licence for that.

We are traditional and it has worked out just fine for us thus far. I as the husband is the head, but my wife is a partner and not my servant, and important matters should ordinarily be decided by mutual consultation, nor does my authority extend to irrational, foolish or sinful commands. We are servants of one another. There is no 50/50 in our marriage. There have been seasons where it’s 20/80 her way and vice versa.

The deeper principle is differentiated responsibility rather than identical function.

Marriage is a school of virtue.

The question isn’t really about whether your spouse fulfills you. It’s about whether your marriage is making you faithful, prudent, just, temperate, courageous, patient and charitable.

Sacrifice doesn’t automatically signify that something is going wrong. Sometimes, sacrifice is precisely what love requires.

The modern idea of marriage hasn’t abandoned the beautiful truth that spouses should genuinely love one another. But it adds the dangerous idea that marriage remains justified insofar as that love continues to produce sufficient personal fulfilment.

Traditional marriage reversed the hierarchy. You didn’t remain married because you continually felt in love.

You learned how to love because you’d promised to remain married.

Weak boundaries and chronic accommodation is not khidma. You don’t want to confront it so you use spiritual vocabulary to sanctify the limitation. Then comes the gatekeeper murid, constantly breaking your psyche with what the Shaykh supposedly said, wants, and expects. He weaponizes proximity and keeps breaking down your confidence until you no longer trust your own perception. The madness of crowds — which you mistakenly call Suhba, teach you to confuse your neurotic self surveillance for Muraqaba. Several years in, now being a spiritual seeker has swallowed all your other identities in an unhealthy way. Most of your family and coworkers don’t even recognize you anymore. When you finally snap out it, you are ready to leave the religion itself. The whole objective should be to get yourself to a point of standing on your own two feet and straightening out your spine. Be normal.

Healthy suhba should make one more grounded, honest, responsible, and capable of fulfilling their obligations to Allah, family, and the world. It should not erase one’s personality or make one psychologically dependent upon the group. But one might say isn’t the whole purpose of Suhba to depend on the group spiritually which include psychologically? Yes, one could say that, and there is some truth in it. Suhba is not modern individualism with dhikr added. It creates real bonds of reliance, trust, imitation, correction, and belonging. That necessarily reaches the psyche.

The issue is not dependence versus independence. The real distinction is healthy spiritual interdependence versus pathological psychological dependency. For example, healthy Suhba corrects the ego, but unhealthy Suhba dismantles the personality. Healthy Suhba deepens one’s responsibility to family, work and local community. Unhealthy Suhba pulls one away from these ordinary obligations. Healthy Suhba makes one secure and mature, whereas unhealthy Suhba keeps one in permanent emotional childhood.

Fasting, Praying, and Making a Mess of the Rest

Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir Al- Jilani quotes ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz in Ghunyah as saying:

“Piety is not fasting by day and praying by night while making a mess of what lies between them. Rather, it is leaving what God has forbidden and fulfilling what God has made obligatory. Whatever God grants beyond that is goodness added to goodness.”