How can someone speak so passionately about honesty while refusing to hear it? How can someone warn others about masks while hiding behind one? How can someone tell others not to drown while pushing them underwater by amplifying lies and rumors they created?
Scholars mention that the first word in Rumi’s Mathnawi is “Listen.” Someone who is not willing to listen will remain trapped in their own mind forever.
For years, I wrote in a style that did not exist in the Muslim publishing world. When I began weaving Qur’anic reflection with psychological insight, emotional theology, and structured spiritual practice, there were no books, no guides, no “yearlong journeys,” no weekly contemplative frameworks that resembled what I was doing. I was writing from a place of sincerity, not strategy — from a prayer to help people understand the Qur’an with depth, honesty, and emotional integrity. Today, the landscape looks very different. The market is now full of books that mirror the exact structure, tone, and methodology I pioneered: weekly Read More …
The essence of the root j-b-r is the irresistible restoration of something, and the name al-Jabbār describes the nature of the One who is the ultimate restorer of the soundness, wholeness and righteousness of all things. For a human being, any claim to such irresistible power would be false pride and arrogance, but for Allāh it is simply the truth.
