19. June 2017

On the dynamics of investing in a partnership with God, and what it means to build a partnership with God. Link to Listen/Download on Hightail.com

30. January 2017

Dear Dr. Abou El Fadl, First I'd like to thank you for your efforts and thoughts, which I very much appreciate. I wanted to reach out to you however for a personal Enquiry or rather a spiritual crisis as you once called it. I have seen your fatwa on Hijab, thinking it will relieve my struggle but I'm still unsure of which way to go. I have been wearing the headscarf for 24 years (since I was 16) out of strong urge by sheikhs and the belief that it is mandatory, and the strong fear that I'd be...

01. October 2016

Respected Sir, I am a christian by birth from India. Sir, I wanted to know about what can I call myself, I started learning about Islam in 2010 and found plenty of things correct to my heart and so I started following it from heart, while learning about it in one of the site it was said that if u read the kalma from heart you are a muslim from that time onwards and I did read it with accepting the meaning. As I was reading quran an english version I found plenty of it resembling bible which...

01. November 2014

Submitting to Infinite Divinity One way of approaching this issue is to re-consider the idea of submission to God. It is well known that the word Islam means submission, and the basic Islamic demand is that human beings submit themselves to God, and to no one else and nothing else. Human beings should struggle to defeat their weaknesses, control their urges, and gain mastery over themselves. Only by gaining mastery over the self can that self be meaningfully submitted to God. If the self is...

09. December 2008

Chapter 9: Islamic authority By Khaled Abou El Fadl In formulating Islamic law, it has become common in the modern age to use the authority of the Author (God) to justify the despotism of the reader. In effect, by claiming that the only relevant consideration is the Will of the Author, the reader is able to displace the Author and set himself as the sole voice of authority: the reader becomes God, as it were. The replacement of God’s authority with that of the reader is an act of despotism...

01. June 2006

This Conference resonates with visions of the subtle and sublime; it permeates the world with echoes of The Divine. Centuries of discourse coalesce upon a moment to ponder a single emotion in time. The records of existence are re-opened and examined as the ideas migrate and rebound. It is not what we know, but what we could know that guides us; aren't the possibilities limitless when exploring the Divine? We search for God in the permutations of the rejuvenating text, in the enticements of...

01. January 2006

This Conference was founded on the beauty of the Book, and our Civilization was the civilization of books. Our way to God is guided by the Book, and we found our worth only in books. Our God manifested through the Book, and our identity was defined by books. So how can we become the corrupters of the Book and the betrayers of books? What type of arrogance permits a people to name themselves God’s soldiers and then usurp His authority? What type of arrogance empowers a people to inject their...

01. January 2006

By Khaled Abou El Fadl Prophet of God, Muhammad, may peace and blessings be upon you. Peace and blessings from the heart of this pitiful delinquent, and if you turn me away, I have no grounds to complain. I know that I am a man who is frivolous, malevolent, and trivial; I deem myself entirely contemptible. So if you ignore me, I understand; in fact, perhaps that is exactly what you should do. Yet, you never turned a single soul away especially when this soul, with your love, is entirely at...

01. January 2006

Can we trace the footsteps of the beloved when the beloved has walked away? Can we find the scent, the fragrance, the redolence of his trace? Can we seek the fragments of memory, the smiles, the laughs, and the kind gestures? Can we locate the beauty over fourteen hundred years too late? I agonize over these questions, struggle with the promises, and I refuse to despair. I agonize over the questions, and so I run to the Conference—I run to the books. I run to the papers and the ink. I run to...

01. January 2006

If envy is a sin then I am the incurable sinner for I envy every eye that ever caught a glimpse of you. I envy the waves that carried your voice, and the air that touched your cheeks. I envy even the ground that once served you, and I confess to you that despite my indulgent sins, my shameful whimsies and ugly flimsies, I confess to you, "I love you." My confessions are as silly as my muted words. You have been loved by so many more substantial than I, and what good does my silence or...