Greetings of Peace!

 

Welcome to our brave new world - where knowledge and virtue reign supreme.  Where humanism and the humanist imperative underscore everything we do - as a matter of faith.

 

Where the words "Muslim" and "Islam" inspire beauty, calm, reasonableness, respect, admiration, trust and hope for a welcoming and joyful place for all of humanity, not just Muslims.

 

Where living a life of Godliness trumps a life of unGodliness and where justice, love and inclusiveness for all of God's Creation is the ultimate measure of success.  

 

These are the virtues and principles of the Islam that we know and love - the moral message of the Shari'ah (the path to and from God) and the foundation of the Islamic faith as emphasized in the values and ethics of the Muslim holy book, the Qur'an.  

 

Sound unfamiliar? Then you have come to the right place!  Our work is about bringing this humanist imperative to the fore and helping others discover and reconnect with the often forgotten beauty of our tradition.  For those who do not believe that the Islamic message has anything of value to offer forward-thinking, intelligent, pragmatic, and reasonable people in the Western world, we are ready to shock your world.

  

Our old website, Scholar of the House, had long been dedicated to presenting Dr. Abou El Fadl's scholarship. Created in 1999 as a largely passive archival site for his work, it originally sold books and audiocassette recordings of the professor's lectures, and then eventually, CD versions. After 9/11, with the rising tide of Islamophobia, we made all of the lectures free and downloadable.

 

Now, we present "The Search for Beauty" website, an updated, more engaged and user-friendly site for finding Dr. Abou El Fadl's vast scholarship and spoken wisdom together in one place. Our job is to make this knowledge more accessible and easier to navigate so that whether you are an activist, a scholar, a journalist or a spiritual seeker, you will find what you need.  

 

More importantly, through Dr. Abou El Fadl's scholarship, we hope to present a new way of thinking about Islam--one that is beautiful, reasonable and dignified, worthy of the honest effort to seek the divine in all avenues of life. 

 

We believe we are engaged in a battle for hearts and minds. Knowledge matters. It is time for a compelling counter-narrative to the extreme, inhumane and ugly interpretations of Islam that have taken hold.

 

We hope to provide the insight and tools necessary to bring about positive change and help illuminate the beautiful and moral path that God intended through the Islamic message. It is a message of love and empowerment that should move every individual to become the best versions of themselves. This is our contribution to creating what Dr. Abou El Fadl terms, "a collective enterprise of goodness" among all people.

 

We believe that the knowledge that exists in these pages can tilt the balance to the side of beauty, justice, goodness and morality - the side of Godliness.

 

If you believe in our mission, we invite you to join us. May God aid us all in emerging from darkness into the light in our collective journey towards enlightenment.

 

In Peace and Hope,

 

Grace Song