A central reason Muslims have never yet flourished on a large scale in the West is our almost wholly negative attitude towards shari'a or sacred law. Negative shari'a should pivot on clear red lines, not a paranoia about whether or not everyday life is "halal." The real purpose of sacred law is in any case positive; it provides principles for maximized human flourishing in accordance with the lofty vision of human nature that has been revealed to us, not a raft of complexes and prohibitions. The true Muslim's natural assumption when encountering a new situation is not only that it is "halal", but that its halal status need not even be investigated. God created all that is in the earth for you; everything on this earth was created for our benefit, in order to help us in actualising the holistic flourishing demanded by our nature; it was not created so that we could be suspicious, uneasy, and paranoid about every unfamiliar thing that we encounter. Instead, in everything you do be faithful and loyal to the haqa'iq and the sha'a'ir, the spiritual realities and the outward symbols of the din. It is that deep spiritual orientation and the pursuit of the corresponding truth, beauty, and goodness in all things which will keep you on the Straight Path, the path of closeness to Allah, not an unhealthy and morally lazy dependence on a "mufti" who has lost all touch with reality. He created all that is in the earth for you is indeed one of the proof texts for the fiqh maxim "the default assumption is permissibility." We should combine it with the hadith, "Seek the moral judgement of your heart," and recognise that a pedantic and partisan fiqh madhhab calculus is rarely the right way to achieve the maqasid of the din in this time. From the ضروريات to the تحسينيات the purposes of sacred law are configured to facilitate the cultivation of truth, beauty, and goodness in the life of each individual believer. Social and cultural non-participation, the self-incarceration of authentically Islamic creative energies, and our defaulting to "halal" medicine and engineering, and thus becoming grey, lifeless non-presences in Western societies that we should be transforming with light, is the price our communities pay for our lazy (and unislamic) legalism.

A metaphysical homecoming at the University of Oxford today. A hopeful reminder that even in Old Blighty, the normative order once reigned!

There is something deeply postmodern, and indeed very 2026, about the ways in which Trump has sought to distract from his excruciatingly public humiliation over Iran, perhaps in the hope of concealing the wholly straightforward nature of the defeat itself. The stark absurdity of the spectacle marks a genuine turning point, in which constructionism as both philosophical and social ideology has finally collided with reality on the plane of power politics and military force. The pattern is indeed recognisable from the clash between subjective self-construction and biological reality, in the personal-ethical sphere of gender "fluidism." Just as we were called on to believe that the self-assertion of a man pretending to "be a woman" represented a fundamentally dignified act that must therefore command public recognition, now a superpower can redescribe perhaps the most humiliating strategic defeat in its history as a stunning victory, because Mar-a-Lago is a magnificent country club and The Donald is tremendously rich. And so he resorts to the smoke and mirrors of "a great, fantastic deal" coming any moment now, just around the corner, as he has now affirmed on 38 separate occasions across two months. We have certainly been distracted. It is well-established that the US now invokes simple might-is-rightism to justify its actions, replacing its previous genuflections to moral piety and the stewardship of a common "liberal-democratic" good for the world; this is what the Portuguese thinker Bruno Maçães has called the "end of hypocrisy." We now know that the end of hypocrisy also represents the end of any remaining sense of reality among the Western elite.

It seems inevitable that the revival of Islam in the latter days will take place within Western cultural forms. This will surely involve a transformation of the very highest of Western cultural forms,* as illuminated by the “Prophetic breeze" foreseen 200 years ago by al-Rawwas. Yes, in a (hitherto insufficiently well-known) visionary experience, the great Rifa'i saint Imam al-Rawwas saw that at the very height of the West's dominance and enmity towards Islam, an effusion from the Prophetic Presence ﷺ would bring large numbers of Westerners into Islam, who in virtue of that effusion, would be blessed with an extraordinarily profound understanding of the dīn. More recently, the great Moroccan saint Shaykh Muhammad Ibn al-Habib also foresaw that the revival of Islam would take place at the hands of individuals from the West. Much of the Muslim presence in the West has failed. I will seek to avoid inciting defensiveness by mentioning names, but many of the initial forms in which the establishment of Islam was sought in the Western world were some or all of 1 formalistic and legalistic 2 narrow-mindedly ethnocentric 3 subordinate to economic concerns, with "Islamic" observance largely no more than a cocoon employed (despite the almost complete absence of an authentic Islamic worldview) to justify fear of a half-understood host culture, and thereby validate insularity, as well as to establish rigid family control structures. 4 intellectually fideistic in a manner that ironically played into the hands of default scientism and positivism 5 devoid of continuity with the historically normative twofold structure of . self-mastery and . purification leading to inward tasting and illumination. Thus personally incapable of presenting a profound vision of Islam to our Western hosts, we became the skulking, sullen intruder whose presence makes no sense. Hence identitarianism, self-ghettoisation, and burning resentment. To the contrary, to be sufficiently acknowledged by the ascendent cultural hegemon to be able to begin to transform it, Islam has to make deep, uniquely intelligible sense as vessel of sanctification, as both the redeemer and liberator of human nature, and as the spiritual, intellectual, and emotional consummator and fulfiller of the human journey through this world, embracing all human types. Meanwhile, the West of advanced modernity has reached unprecedented heights in developing the apparatuses of techne capable of serving as multifarious vehicles for this supreme vision of human nature. But it lacks the cohesive, holistic, integral metaphysical worldview able to provide deep-rooted meaning and content to match that highly enriched matter; it lacks content, that is, beyond hedonism and an ultimately futile and bleak, nihilistic (but still highly arresting) depiction of the drama of human life. And yet let's face it, we are utterly mimetically subordinate to these cultural forms; we cannot see outside them; and we cannot fully see inside them either. Hence our dismal creative weakness and lack of compelling narrative. What we need most urgently of all as an Umma, is the return to the prioritisation of that Prophetic Presence ﷺ in all things. What could effect this transformation but the Presence of the Perfect Man ﷺ? The uniter of all the human types, the full scope of the human experience, mystic, warrior, lawgiver, trader, husband, father, friend? The harmoniser of majesty and beauty in all of those human types, such that the Four Caliphs, the most complete of human beings, were but facets of his perfection ﷺ ? The many of you who think this impossible, thank you, we don't need you. And if this has proved impossible hitherto, it is thanks to the likes of you. For those who believe in the transformative power of the revelation to the Last Prophet ﷺ know that all is possible in the One God who sent him. TBC ... In an upcoming post I will set forward some possible solutions to replace the inadequacies I have outlined here. In the meantime, I'd be interested in your thoughts on all this, including 1-5 above. * i.e., the transformation of Western e.g., literary, artistic, music, institutional, philosophical, and even religious forms.

From my upcoming Ibn Arabi summer course starting late June: The Presence of the Manifestation of the Real through the attributes of creation is the Presence of the Second Determination (التعيّن الثاني، أي: الواحدية), for in so far as it is the locus of the detailed differentiation of the perspectival aspects of determinate unity (الوحدة), this determination is the presence of the Real’s descent, from the degree of the Essential Necessity — which is unique to Him and that none can in any way share in – to the Presence of Possibility, such that all the qualities which become manifest there, amazement, hesitation, laughter, cheerfulness, and so on, become attributed to Him.

Far too often, our everyday human condition amounts to the endless fluctuation of our state from one anxiety and frustration to another, as we (purport to) seek an elusive satisfaction and future "success." Real success as a human being is really very straightforward, and it is always now. It is moulding yourself to the Prophetic Reality ﷺ 1 inwardly, by seeking to make contact with his ﷺ presence in every moment, and thence embarking on the path to the presence of God, and 2 outwardly, by participating in his ﷺ Sunna, the principle, foundation, and condition for which is beautiful character. It is precisely seeking to realise our share in the Prophetic Reality ﷺ in every moment, in every now, inwardly and outwardly, that not only transfigures everyday life and chases anxiety and frustration away, but moreover ensures that that elusive future success will indeed one day be realised, as the fruit of this succession of blessed nows, in which we sanctify our everyday moments through a love of the Best of Creation that is manifested inwardly and outwardly.

From my upcoming Ibn Arabi summer course starting late June THE PROSTRATION OF THE HEART This is the heart becoming so adept in its cultivation of the presence of the Real that its employment of its bodily limbs no longer distracts it therefrom. This is just as in activities like reading and writing and other similar arts, in which a man employs his limbs but his heart is entirely occupied with other than those physical motions. In the same way, in his preoccupation with and cultivation of the presence of his Lord, he may attain the level in which his employment of his limbs does not divert him from the Presence of the Real, nor even diminish his presence with Him to any degree at all. When a man’s heart has entered this state of presence, it is called ‘the prostration of the heart.’

Most Muslims feel the pressure of modern Western society. Far fewer understand the ideas behind it. This Eid, change that. 40% off late entry to BTA’s Advanced Diplomas until Wednesday 3 June 2026. bloggingtheologyacademy.com Survey course: AdvDipTh Close reading: AdvDipGB

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Is there really any point to Eid? What is the cause for rejoicing in this Great Eid of the Sacrifice (Eid, after all, just meaning ‘a recurring celebration’)? In submitting to God’s command to sacrifice his son, our master Ibrāhīm, peace be upon him, really lived, rather than paying mere lip-service, to the fundamental truth that the Eternal Source of the finite must always take precedence over the finite; even when it means sacrificing that which is a part of our very being. But when God allowed him to sacrifice a ram in Ismail’s stead, He showed us that mercy is the governing Divine attribute. As long as we participate in that mercy, via the peace through submission that is Islam, by recognizing the primacy of the eternal and infinite over the temporal and finite, God ennobles us. He affirms the integrity of our being in this world, lifting the burden, and allows us access to that Divine bliss without the need to sacrifice that which is most precious to us. That is, when we "give" God all that we love by showing our submission to Him - because we know that everything we love was only conferred upon us from the spring of God's Eternal Generosity - He gives all that we love back to us in His mercy, no longer as harmful attachments that come between us and God, but as signs of our love for Him and His love for us, and as means of closeness to Him, filled with baraka and true joy. And what could be a more fundamental cause for celebration?

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It should not be thought that the distortion of true Islam by the taint of degraded custom and social practice is reserved for Arabs and the Subcontinent. Western converts are far from immune to their own version of this. Their biggest challenge tends to be selfish individualism, residue of modernity's most fundamental commitment, namely, radical, arbitrary freedom and individual autonomy, which can at worst lead to a narcissistic egoism in which in the splendid isolation of the illusion of self-sufficiency, the individual cuts himself off from other human beings, like a spider in its web, ostensibly to protect himself from "interference." The result is that in comparison to those informed by traditional Islamic culture, the Western convert to Islam is ineluctably prone to throw you under the bus/ fail to be there for you when it matters / make sure to (for the most part non-verbally) let you know that you are utterly dispensable to him. This disloyalty, failure to sacrifice for friends, and falling short of chivalry is endemic to the Western convert. As with almost anything, there are indeed a small number of exceptions ... But most need to learn the hard way, by tasting the bitterness of simply facing up to this degraded trait within themselves, residue of their Western cultural backdrop, which they had imagined 'neutral.' I have heard so many Western converts voicing their sense of uniquely possessing an Islam 'untainted by culture.' And this is nothing short of a delusion. Now certainly, when" sharqī " generosity of spirit turns into possessiveness, by becoming adulterated by ego in the unrefined soul, it can become utterly suffocating and oppressive. But at its best, when it is truly in the golden mean, it will vouchsafe you real friends who will do anything for you, who will go to the ends of the earth for you, and who will truly be in your corner no matter what. I can no longer view anything less than this as genuine friendship. Despite being second generation and not a convert, I also had to learn to be this way the hard way; indeed, one could say that I was initiated into becoming more sharqī than the sharqīs in this regard, by my Shaykh, al-Sayyid Qusayy Abu'l al-Si'd, and moreover by none other than Mawlana Anwar Mangal @movetomuscat . You will remember, habibi, how my Western soul squirmed and writhed when the exigencies of community and true friendship made demands on my time and commitment that felt threatening to my precious sense of Western autonomy. But when I had the courage to acknowledge the obstacle of my own culture, and realised that it did not need to be the air I breathed, I experienced a fullness of humanity beyond my self, in which the Presence of the Perfect Man ﷺ was unmistakable.

This is a very serious programme run by someone I deeply trust and respect. I would highly recommend it as the first choice for those who lack Arabic.

Steelman and do not strawman, if you are a real man.