A recent article written by Yvonne Ridley talks about ‘Pop Culture in the Name of Islam‘. There has been a lot of hype about it, and I don’t even have time to go into detail as I have an exam tomorrow (search google if you want to see!). I am posting just to say that the Islamic group ‘Mecca2Medina‘ have made a response to the article where Yvonne Ridley says: “Islamic boy bands like 786 and Mecca 2 Medina are also the subject of the sort of female adulation you expect to see on American Pop Idol or the X-Factor. Surely Islamic events should be promoting restrained...

Recently I spoke about questioning why. I was trying to make a point – things aren’t always as they seem. The violence in Iraq isn’t stopping, far from it. Let’s question why. ‘Suicide’ bombers are probably the world’s biggest fear. Let’s start by breaking the media-imposed phrase down. You see, suicide is a word associated when someone wishes to end their own life. In my opinion calling anyone who kills themselves to kill others ’suicidal’, is wrong. Of course the term is only used because it incites fear in ones mind, someone who wants to kill...

I have been writing about the HijriDate service over at YSE for a while now, and we have reached a milestone in our development which is soon to be released publicly – the HijriDate Wizard. I have written about working on the project and programming advice here, as well as a screenshot of the wizard. If you have tested the wizard please write an evaluation there.

I just got back from a conference, one of many being held around the UK organised by the IFE (Islamic Forum Europe). I just thought I’d post because of the surprisingly big impact it’s had on me thats ‘re-inspired me’, if you like, to correct certain aspects of practising Islam alongside my everyday life. The talk was given by Jamal Badawi, one of my favourite Muslim lecturers, and focused mainly on how Muslims living in the West should act on trying to attain peace, not just on a global political scale but on a local community scale, and also on finding peace within themselves. On...

Got an email today telling me to vote in this poll, naturally I went along to see what it was and what I saw really saddened me. “…help one another unto righteousness..”Al-Qur’an I could make a hundred excuses for the results of this poll, but let’s face it, Islam’s negative image in society is not something that Muslim’s should leave unnoticed. I have always said that the reason so many people feel this way about Islam is simply out of ignorance, lack of knowledge. There are too many people hearing, seeing and saying negative things about Islam with...

Well, this officially the 500th post by the Usayd Network! We have reached our half a thousand milestone! I thought that a suitable topic for this would be talking about making an impact. We all know how important it is that we give a good impression of ourselves to others. For example, when we go perhaps for a job interview, or to talk to someone in a higher position then ourselves, we strive to leave them with a positive impression. We always seem to find that when we are with familiar company, our friends or our peers, we change our attitudes – and not normally in a good way. One of...

There are a chain of questions that are asked when something happens. It goes something like ‘What, Where, How, When and Why‘. Something that seems to be missing more and more in society today is the question of ‘Why’. People are always quick to ask who did it, how did they do it, where and when did they do it. We never stop to think about why. Perhaps people are scared of the answer. Maybe the answer is actually true. Maybe the answer is scary, maybe it explains things that you want to leave unexplained. There are so many things going on in the world which are not being...

The cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed . Yep, I probably should say something about them. Really there has been so much going on about it and I’ve been trying to keep up with that, I kind of forgot to give my ‘tuppence’. Well I wrote a comment to BBC, I don’t know if it will be published but it basically sums up how I feel about the whole situation: |inline