Letters to My Daughter

Alhamdullilah. I am so grateful that I took Philosophy of Religion class. Listening to students espouse secular humanism made me realize how fortunate I am to be a Muslim. I feel like issues of religion versus secularism, religion versus state, these are not applicable to my idelogical framework because the Quran provides a textual basis for truth that is accessible to anyone who wants to read it. A system is already in place. There are things that need work within that system, but God has created the conceptual framework. It gets translated, but the understanding of that time is a continual process that keeps God at the center of discourse. I love the idea that God is the center of discourse. In my class, for the strangest reason, people almost never talked about GOD. It was a PHILOSOPHY of RELIGION class, and religion was talked about mostly in the monotheistic tradition, yet still, people hardly felt a stake in trying to defend why God exists. The arguments for the existence of God ...

Art and Empire in the Persian World The meaning of art, philosophy, and religion is to direct man’s attention to riddles, secrets, and questions. It sometimes leads to certain knowledge but more often to an awareness of ignorance or to transforming our ignorance of which we are not aware into ignorance of which we are aware. (107) These are the words of Izetbegovic, author of Islam between East and West, in which he writes about the importance of art, especially in distinguishing culture and civilization. He suggests that the value assigned to art is the awareness it provides in illuminating riddles, secrets and questions of the individual, her goals, her dreams, her inner life. Despite the politics of power involved in commissioning artwork as a source of legitimizing governments and the rule of kings, art does not necessarily serve the needs of the state alone. Even in propaganda images circulated in manuscripts from the 14th through 15th centuries, there is an element of person...

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I have not written on my blog, though I have really wanted to talk about married life, school, plans, etc. But basically. all that can be summarized as Alhamdullilah. What I love about my blog is posting papers that have already been graded. Here is a recent one. Basically, he write about why it is good to be married. I love that I am no longer preoccupied with thoughts of boys, friendships, soul mates, gender relations, etc. Marriage personally has allowed me to engage in my coursework like I have never been able to before. It is a wonderous experience to be ready for class, with questions, to pursue your professors with questions, etc. Anyway, marriage is the sunnah of the Prophet (saw) andd highly regarded because of so many different merits. As only al-Ghazali can elaborate: Marriage and Maintenance: The Discourse of Paternalism in al Ghazali’s The Proper Conduct of Marriage in Islam Praise be to Allah Whose wondrous works are proof against the arrows of illusion, from Whose simple...