SOME time ago, after a rather fruitless discussion about innovation in Islam, I tweeted: ‘the intellectual insecurity of having to be absolute is absolute insecurity’. My feeling about those of the absolutist persuasion (and I’m not necessarily referring to the above) is that when posed with possible alternatives to a[…]

IN the early hours of Saturday, 1 February, community icon Munadia Karaan passed away after a long and courageous battle with cancer. She was 47. Former news editor, webmaster, presenter and programme manager at Voice of the Cape, she was a larger-than-life personality. She was always much more than the[…]

ATLANTA based scholar and descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, Shaikh Muhammad ibn Yahya Ninowy, visited the Azzawia in Cape Town for an evening of dhikr. In a brief talk the Shaikh said that the phrase “al-adab miftah ul-‘ilm” (good conduct is the key to knowledge) was not just a statute,[…]

LAST year one could easily have thought there was an imperial plot against the Mass Mawlud held at Green Point Common. Apart from the anti-mawlud brigade getting thoroughly narked about it, a chain of events on the day snowballed into an organisational nightmare. A rampaging 60-knot south-easter, sweeping with venom[…]

SINCE the Arab Spring, the Middle-East and North Africa have experienced tectonic political shifts. From Tunis to Sana people lost their fear and gathered in mass protest to shake off the rule of their long-standing despots. Tunisia’s Ben Ali left in a hurry for Saudi Arabia, his plane loaded with[…]

‘Eid ul-Adha, the festival of sacrifice which coincides with the Hajj, is an important and hugely symbolic event. For the Hujjaj, who’ve just come from ‘Arafah, Muzdalifah and Mina, there’s release from the ihram and that moment when the knife slides across the throat of the sacrificial animal. The ihram[…]

NO issue has more horrified, confused and divided the community than the Syrian crisis – in many ways a re-visiting of the dirty tricks era of the 1970’s Cold War due to US, Russian, Saudi Arabian, Chinese and Iranian interference. It has horrified with its ferocity and violence. Assaults on[…]

Shaikh Bin Baz calls Imam Shafi’i (ra) an innovator One of the truly annoying things about social media is what I call “cut-and-paste da’wah”, so-called propagation by the sweep and click of a mouse. These cyber missionaries – no doubt of good intent – take great umbrage when their unedited[…]

When Muslims around the globe begin to fast this Ramadan upon sighting the crescent of the moon, it will be the 1,434th consecutive year that the community has honoured this sacred lunar month. Ramadan is one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith, and commemorates the revelation of the[…]