In the cause of Allah

Muriel Maufroy has beautifully architected the transformations in Kimya's life. She was a Christian and became the daughter of a great Muslim saint and philosopher of her time (Mawlana Jalal-ud-Rumi). She was a curious girl. She has leaned towards the mystical paths since her childhood. Her restlessness brought her to the ocean of mysticism, where she was nurtured and accompanied by it. In her childhood, Christopher acknowledged her personality. He informed her parents to take her to the city of Konya and admitted her to a Church where she learned religious studies. Fate has other plans for her.   In her life in the village, she explored her innate love for mysticism with a mystic who came from Konya. He had abandoned his life in Konya and started living in far-flung mountains for meditation and seclusion. She, along with her sister, took food to him. Through the mystic, she learned different languages and answers to her questions. He also talked with her about the great sai...

The international best-selling book, " The Reluctant Fundamentalist," is  beautifully written by a Pakistani writer, Mohsin Hamid. It has secured applause from writers and the academy as a brilliant book. It consists of events and memories written in such a way that once you start reading, your curiosity to know the end of the story accelerates with each turning page. The writer, who mentions himself as Changez, is a citizen of Lahore, Pakistan. He belongs to a middle-class family in Pakistan. At the age of 16, he was admitted to Princeton University in America and studied Finance and Accounting. His dream came true when he got admission to Princeton University. He graduated at the age of 22 and got a job at a reputable supply chain firm in the United States. Meanwhile, he also mentioned his experience of love with an American girl named Erica, who entered his life and inevitably stayed in his life. Along with these, he mentioned his experiences of the World Trade Center at...

Mahatma Gandhi once said, ‘Poverty is the worst form of violence.” When poverty consolidates with hunger, it worsens and adds insult to injury. Poverty is a lack of food, shelter, and clothing. It is widely a manifestation of hunger, malnutrition, and limited access to education and basic necessities such as health and infrastructure. It also includes social discrimination and exclusion in terms of decision-making. Organizations like the United Nations, United Nations Development Programs, and the World Bank, claim that they have uplifted half of the world's population out of poverty. They measure the poverty rate by one dollar per day, but these very organizations today also acknowledge the persistence of acute poverty and simultaneously hunger in more than 11 percent of the world population who are living in extreme poverty, mal-nutrition and are struggling to acquire basic necessitates like education, health, and access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Why many countries a...

     Brexit means Britain leaving the European Union. People othe f UK through a referendum on 23 June 2016 decided to leave the EU which means the UK is now abandoning the Single Market economy, customs unions, free movement of goods and people, and jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. UK joined the EEC(European Economic Community) in 1973, within 2 years after their joining- in 1975 UK had its first referendum in which 68% of people voted to remain as part of the EEC(renamed as EU in 1993) [1] . Similarly, in the 2015 general elections, the Conservative Party vowed to take a referendum once they formed their government and Prime Minister David Cameron fulfilled his commitment to a referendum in 2016 in which 51.9 % of votes were cast to leave and 48.1 % to remain as part of EU [2] . Today, the EU is an economic, political, and security partnership between 28 member states in Europe. This multilateral collation was aimed to undermine future wars within Europe t...

The project of modernity that started in the West has profoundly impacted Islam in general and Shia in particular. Modernization transformed the Shia political ideology and the role of the Shia clergy. Like Western philosophers, who advocated new socio-political, economic, and religious doctrines, Shia scholars, such as Dr. Ali Shariati, Murtaza Mutahhari, Ruhollah Khomeini, Mirza Mahdi al-Shirazi, and Baqir Al-Sadr had not only redefined Shi’a political ideology and role of Shia clergy but also staunchly defended western influence and provided an indigenous socio-political and economic understanding of Islam. Their efforts paved the way for strengthening Shi’a political ideology and Shi’a clergy and institutional and ideological developments. Ali Shariati, for instance, exposed the scheme of Westernization and emphasized the revival of cultural, spiritual, and religious independence in Shiism. Similarly, Mutahhari succeeded in providing an alternative to the growing influence of Marxi...

Shia's worldview and history are significantly different from those of other Islamic denominations. Shia emphasizes a forward-looking approach where the reappearance of Imam Mahdi--who is in occultation--is a cardinal part of their theology. Mahdi is a figure whom Shia believe will reappear in the future to avenge the injustice, oppression, and brutality of the past. This reappearance will manifest when the earth faces chaos, evil, falsehood, and degeneration of religion. His reappearance at the end of human history will fulfill divine authority brought about by the prophets and become the final hope for fulfilling the hopes of the Shia (Ayoub, 221). According to a Sunni source Sahih Tirmidhi, 74-75, a tradition out of many about Imam Mahdi where the Prophet Muhammad said, "Even if the entire duration of the world's existence has already been exhausted and only one day is left before Doomsday (Day of judgment), Allah will expand that day to such a length of time, as to acc...

In a quest to learn about the world, philosophers put forward different theories. From the early Greeks to Aristotle, either faith in supernatural things or substances such as water, air, and fire dominated the intellectual minds. The search continued and reached the times of great philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates, who conquered the intellectual pursuit of philosophy. The achievements in physics, ethics, morality, science, and philosophy stagnated with the birth of Christianity and Judaism. Asceticism and altruism took hold over reason and logic. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas were influential philosophers who integrated Platonic and Aristotelian philosophies with the Christian faith and helped preserve the treasures of reason, logic, and empiricism in the religious world of the Middle Ages.   In medieval times, all thinkers from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim were preoccupied with the attempt to synthesize philosophy with religion. The Neo-Platonism philosophy of Pl...