You cannot understand tawḥīd, the principle, governing the cosmos, without understanding its negations: tughyān (lit. transgression). If tawḥīd is a form of critical consciousness then awareness of who or what is the tāghūt is pivotal to that awareness. Sherman A. Jackson captures the meaning of the term tāghūt brilliantly as “second-creators.” The second creators do…

The dunyā is a pantheon of idolatry, much like the Kaaba before the advent of Islam. To recall, In a previous meditation, I distinguished between the world-as-dunyā (lit. that which is close, lowly, the closed world) and the world-as-‘alam (lit. a sign, the open world). I am not referring to two different worlds but one…

Fasting is a revolt against the modern condition. It is an existential act of disobedience against the secular age. It is existential in that it situates man at the crossroads between two existential orientations (how to be in the world) and by orientation I mean a consciousness, attitude, and the totality of our behavior. Moreover,…

There are two obstacles to liberation: aid and reform. However, well-intentioned aid perpetuates the dependence of the oppressed. Similarly, reform is the illusion that the oppressed can depend on the ruling elite to ‘grant’ them certain rights. In both instances, the oppressed relinquish decision: the decision to liberate oneself. In both instances, the ‘Other’ absorbs…

In a previous meditation, I put forth a thematic distinction between two orders: the dunyā and the ‘alam. I also stated that this distinction corresponds to two existential orientations: being-in-the-dunyā (inwijād) and being-in-the-‘alam (al-tawājud). I now want to suggest that these two existential orientations correspond to two forms of participation: participation in a lower-order and…

To confront and overcome oppression requires a critical consciousness, that is, an awareness of the dynamics and reality of oppression as a state of being. To illustrate, an acritical position on oppression would reduce oppression to violence. Such a position, however, overlooks a critical dimension of oppression. How so? The root word for ‘oppression,’ as…

“The People Demand the Fall of the Regime.” With those words, the Arabo-Muslim world overcame the fear of freedom and the anguish and anxiety-ridden state of indecision. The unthought – the future – became an active subject of a newly emerging collective consciousness. To revolt is to enact a process of self-affirmation, of becoming. To…

Ikhlāṣ is often translated as sincerity in one’s intentions and actions. I want to suggest, however, that it is more than that. Ikhlāṣ, in essence, is (1) an existential openness to the Truth and (2) a fidelity to the Truth – both of which amount to an existential orientation. Ikhlāṣ, as such, is a prerequisite…

Secularism is the philosophy of alienation. How so? In my previous meditation, I described secularism as the sacralization of the immanent: a misplacement of transcendence (the immanent being the dunyā). The consequence is the alienation of the self from itself and the alienation of the self from God because the world, man, and God are…

“What has happened to the transcendent ground in [this] connection? It has become, let us say, immanentized. We still have, of course, the quest of the ground, we want to know where things come from. But since God (in revelatory language) or transcendent divine being (in philosophical language) is prohibited for agnostics, they must put…