The Medium is the Message Marshall MacLuhan, of the well-turned epigram, is too tempting to cite really, and too much needed in this utilitarian age that sees only content and not this other matter, sees only the message and not the medium by which the message comes, and what a matter that is! Of course, …
Category Archives: Articles
The Falsity of the Concept of the Islamic State – Abdassamad Clarke
A concept of ‘The Islamic State’ has become very widespread among Muslims and non-Muslims and although the following document is based on my analysis of an essay whose origins I have so far been unable to trace, it has simply articulated a misconception that is very widespread. This is certainly not an attack on the …
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Myth, Narrative and History – Abdassamad Clarke
O Allah bless our Master Muhammad and his family and companions and greet peace Because of our ignorance of history and our ‘ulama’s ignorance of of history, certain events have come to assume mythic proportions. One of these is the event of Kerbala. The movement of this event-as-myth to the centre stage of Muslim discourse …
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Brev till en ny muslim (del 1 av 2) – Abdassamad Clarke
Brev till en ny muslim (del 1 av 2) I Allahs namn, den Allnådige, den Nåderike Och må Allah välsigna Muhammad, hans familj och hans följeslagare, och må Han skänka dem frid. Allah, upphöjd är Han, säger det vars mening är: Vem kan säga någonting bättre än den som kallar till Allah och handlar rättfärdigt …
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Letter to a New Muslim
In the Name of Allah, the All Merciful, the Most Merciful And may Allah bless Muhammad and his family and companions and grant them peace. Allah, exalted is He, says that whose meaning is: Who could say anything better than someone who summons to Allah and acts rightly and says, “I am one of the …
Yeats and the Libyan Revolution
The Dreaming of the Bones by W. B. Yeats provides some unexpected insights into the current crisis in Libya. Yeats’s work might seem an unlikely place to discover a clue to a part of the current Libyan crisis. Yet it was just in such an unanticipated way that I came upon the route to something …
The Muslim: not blinded by science – Abdassamad Clarke
Although we were much cheered by one recent author’s brave moral call for an end to science (Understanding the Present, Bryan Appleyard) and even more so by another’s assertion that it has already ended (The End of Science, John Horgan), there still remain some matters to attend to and pertinent reasons as to why there …
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The People of Prophetic Guidance and Europe – Abdassamad Clarke
Based on the notes for a talk delivered in Edinburgh at the ISLAM IN EUROPE CONFERENCE 2005 on Sunday 27th March 2005, this article contains both less and more than that talk, concluding slightly differently. On my way here, because of various crises and minor dramas I had to call on an old friend to …
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The Einstein Case: determinism’s rearguard action – Abdassamad Clarke
If we regard Thales as the man who was so enamoured of the heavens that he fell down a well which he hadn’t noticed, then we might depict Einstein as the man who so enthralled others with the picture he painted of the cosmos that they didn’t even notice they themselves had already fallen down …
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The Year of the Elephant – Abdassamad Clarke
“Do you not see what your Lord did with the Companions of the Elephant? Did He not bring all their schemes to nothing, unleashing upon them flock after flock of birds, bombarding them with stones of hard-baked clay, making them like stripped wheat-stalks eaten bare?” Even the weather is out of sorts: one day hot …
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