Phew! It’s been a helluva year! Really busy but rewarding. I’ll be taking a break from 24/12/09 to 11/1/10. See you then. Shafiq

I can remember octogenarian Arabs telling me in my travels to the Middle-East how in their distant childhoods mosques in Syria, Jordan and Palestine would be decorated for Christmas.

The other day I tuned into a Q & A, a popular programme on all our South African Muslim radio stations. This is where a titled cleric tackles listeners’ religious questions. Generally speaking, I would say that these programmes serve a useful purpose. A wide range of issues are usually[…]

Animal Farm, the feted novel by George Orwell (the nom-de-plume of Eric Arthur Blair) has been studied by generations of learners. Written by a struggling left-wing journalist, it employs the allegory of a farm to tell a tightly-woven tale of how social revolution can turn on itself. First published in[…]

Terry Crawford-Browne, who is currently observing the Palestinian situation for the World Council of Churches, reports that the Shaikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem is very tense due to house demolitions and evictions by belligerent settlers. The Israelis have been trying to ethnically cleanse this historical Arab part of the[…]

Check out the surfingbehindthewall.blogspot.com link for the real identity of Ben Lategan…

Just to say that we’re still alive, and kicking – well almost. The “Travelling Light” TV Project has left town, and yours truly is a little bedraggled. Lots of behind the scenes running around and long hours, but director Zak Whiteman flew out of Cape Town last night a happy[…]

  No, we’re not advertising a hippie bus-ride to Cape Point.   “The Traveling Light Project” is the brainchild of Shaikh Abdal Hakim Murad, professor of Islamic Studies at Cambridge University. The Shaikh is one of the world’s foremost experts on Imam al-Ghazali, the 12th century colossus of Islam who[…]

“The publication you have in your hands is the first of what we hope will be an annual series that provides a window into the movers and shakers of the Muslim world. We have strived to highlight people who are influential as Muslims, that is, people whose influence is derived[…]

Us Capetonians are a weird, if not colourful and otherwise lot. Construct a footbridge over a freeway, and we’ll inevitably play Russian roulette in the traffic.  Nothing like dancing amongst the pantechnicons. In summer, when the mornings are wind free, we’ll sleep until the south-easter comes up gale force – and only[…]