Recent Essays
Philosophy Between Idolatry and Neglect
When philosophy is made sovereign, it becomes ideology. When philosophy is denied, it returns as prejudice. Its proper place lies between these two errors: as a disciplined instrument in the service of truth.
02Give thy thoughts no tongue - Shakespeare's advice to Muslims
Great literature reveals man to himself, and Shakespeare turns a father’s counsel into a complete map of conduct. Read through Islam, these lines become a discourse on adab: restraining speech, disciplining desire, guarding friendship, dignity, wealth, and the soul. To be true to oneself is to return to fitrah — the self that stands before Allah.
03The Pillars of Atheism – How Modern Education, Communism, Feminism, and Salafism Hollow Out the Muslim World from Within
Atheism in Muslim lands rarely begins with an open denial of God. It begins much earlier, when the Muslim mind is trained to trust only the measurable, the Muslim family is recast as a site of oppression, and religion is stripped of its cultural and spiritual body in the name of reform or purity. By the time disbelief becomes explicit, the deeper work has already been done: culture has thinned, hierarchy has collapsed, family has weakened, and revelation no longer stands at the center of life. What appears as modern liberation is often only a more sophisticated road to civilizational unbelief.
Arq-e-Gulab
The Best of Sull Kaak
Philosophy Between Idolatry and Neglect
When philosophy is made sovereign, it becomes ideology. When philosophy is denied, it returns as prejudice. Its proper place lies between these two errors: as a disciplined instrument in the service of truth.
✦ RecommendedGive thy thoughts no tongue - Shakespeare's advice to Muslims
Great literature reveals man to himself, and Shakespeare turns a father’s counsel into a complete map of conduct. Read through Islam, these lines become a discourse on adab: restraining speech, disciplining desire, guarding friendship, dignity, wealth, and the soul. To be true to oneself is to return to fitrah — the self that stands before Allah.
✦ RecommendedThe Pillars of Atheism – How Modern Education, Communism, Feminism, and Salafism Hollow Out the Muslim World from Within
Atheism in Muslim lands rarely begins with an open denial of God. It begins much earlier, when the Muslim mind is trained to trust only the measurable, the Muslim family is recast as a site of oppression, and religion is stripped of its cultural and spiritual body in the name of reform or purity. By the time disbelief becomes explicit, the deeper work has already been done: culture has thinned, hierarchy has collapsed, family has weakened, and revelation no longer stands at the center of life. What appears as modern liberation is often only a more sophisticated road to civilizational unbelief.
Most Popular Reads
Before the Arguments Begin - Chapter 4 - Forces of Placement
When leaves fall in every season, the arborist does not polish the leaves; he checks the root. So too here. When the sign loses its power, it is rarely because the thread or the dye has failed; it is because the meaning that once animated the loom has thinned. The craft survives as a costume, the word as a shell, the ritual as choreography without covenant.
Before the Arguments Begin - Chapter 2 - Cultural Map and Mechanism
We ended the first chapter by naming the backstage machinist that cues our certainty before the arguments arrive. We called it culture—the living operating system that sorts the world into drawers...
Before the Arguments Begin - Chapter 3 - Culture: Norms and Forms
We have unmasked the lens and drawn the map. We exposed the quiet workshop beneath our “I think”—the pre-argument loom where habits, loyalties, and loves set the hinges on which our certainties...
Bookshelf
A collection of extended writings
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- Jul 16 Philosophy Between Idolatry and Neglect 59 min
- Jun 23 Give thy thoughts no tongue - Shakespeare's advice to Muslims 73 min
- Apr 8 The Pillars of Atheism – How Modern Education, Communism, Feminism, and Salafism Hollow Out the Muslim World from Within 42 min
- Mar 30 First Principles and Civilizational Change 12 min
- Mar 3 Before the Arguments Begin - Chapter 5 - Forces of Displacement - I 112 min
- Jan 14 Before the Arguments Begin - Chapter 4 - Forces of Placement 266 min
- Dec 28 Q&A: When Truth Becomes Theatre: On the Discomfort with Modern Religious Debates 12 min
- Dec 24 Q&A: Hierarchy and the Moral Lie of Equal Outcomes 17 min
- Dec 4 Q&A: Why are people on falsehood united and Muslims scattered? 13 min
- Nov 30 Who Put Modesty on Trial? 16 min
- Nov 19 Before the Arguments Begin - Chapter 3 - Culture: Norms and Forms 131 min
- Nov 17 Before the Arguments Begin - Chapter 2 - Cultural Map and Mechanism 158 min
- Nov 11 Before the Arguments Begin - Chapter 1 - The Secret Loom 102 min
- Oct 26 Digital Revolution - From Reflection to Reaction 6 min
- Oct 5 The Dignity of the Drowned: On the Sacred Weight of Loneliness 23 min
- Aug 24 Counter Currents - Generational Trauma & Toxic Families 65 min
- Aug 7 Our Culture - Part 1 - What is Culture? 21 min
- Aug 7 Our Culture - Part 2 - Forces of Displacement 73 min
- Aug 7 Our Culture - Part 3 - End of Religion 30 min
- Aug 7 Our Culture - Part 4 - Towards a Reform Movement 43 min
- Aug 7 Our Culture - Part 5 - A Reform that Works 23 min
- Aug 7 Our Culture - Part 6 - The Road to Medina 21 min
- Jul 27 Tolerance as Treason: How Liberal Muslims Betray Truth 27 min
- Jul 12 Problem Narrative is Problematic 22 min
- Jul 11 Counter-Narrative | Response to “Empty Houses, Aging Parents: Kashmir’s Wealth Illusion” 5 min
- Jun 29 Culture Bashing Cannot go Unabated 37 min
- Jun 20 The Catastrophe of One Generation: A Cultural Holocaust in the Making 22 min
- Jun 18 Counter Narrative | A Culture that Silences Men or Men with a Culture Silenced? 4 min
- Jun 15 A Message to NEET Aspirants Who Gave It Their All 5 min
- May 30 Counter Narrative | Soft Feminism, Hardcore Destruction 4 min
- May 11 Q&A: Past Grief and Struggles 6 min
- May 4 Counter Narrative | The Velvet Knife: A Civilizational Critique of the Sentimental Modernist Discourse on Marriage and Parenting in Kashmir 25 min
- Feb 11 A Story of Nothingness and Everything in Between 4 min
- Nov 16 Pop Culture Mysticism 30 min
- Oct 8 Q & A: Difficult to be Good Consistently 6 min
- Mar 27 Afraid of Commitment | Sull Diyan Gallan 1 min
- Mar 12 All About Ramadan | Islam | Kashmiri Traditions | Sage's Vault 3 min
- Feb 25 What Can a Single Man Do | Sull Diyan Gallan 1 min
- Feb 12 Q&A: Why is Atheism bad and Atheists and the West outsiders? 9 min
- Nov 30 Ancient Religiosity and Modern Atheism 5 min
- Oct 25 The Stupid Boy | Kashmiri Folktale | Kashmiri Traditions | Sage's Vault 1 min
- Sep 26 Scarmane and Snowflake 1 min
- Mar 5 Alamdar 1 min
- Mar 5 No One Can Change the Word of Allah - Quran - 6:11 19 min
- Mar 4 Books that influenced Gandhi 2 min
- Mar 4 Do you know everything? 1 min
- Mar 4 The Meeting 9 min
- Mar 3 The Prophet (saw) Says... 1 min
- Feb 12 7. Islam at the Crossroads - Conclusion 4 min
- Jan 25 Asi kati lagan pata - Sources of Knowledge 7 min
- Jan 21 The Idealist Knows 3 min
- Dec 25 Kashmiri Traditions | Kashmiri Folklore | The Malcontent Cured 1 min
- Dec 18 6. Sunnah and its Spirit 5 min
- Dec 15 Message to the Beginners in Learning | Adab | Kashmiri Traditions | Sneak sPeak 1 min
- Dec 11 5. Westernization as the reason for the onslaught on Hadith and Sunnah 5 min
- Dec 8 Lal Dyed 1 min
- Dec 4 4. Western Education & the Muslim Imitation of it 5 min
- Nov 3 Modern Classics for Your Library 4 min
- Nov 3 Modern Classics on History 2 min
- Nov 3 Modern Classics: Biographies; Memoirs; Important Personalities 1 min
- Nov 3 Modern Classics: Literature 1 min
- Nov 3 Modern Classics: Psychology, Self Help, Sense Making, Guidance, Basic Learning 1 min
- Nov 3 Modern Classics on Science and Environment 1 min
- Oct 25 An Alternate Academia 29 min
- Sep 5 No god but God! 11 min
- Aug 21 Modern Classics on Islam 7 min
- Aug 21 Modern Classics on Religion 2 min
- Aug 21 Modern Classics on Philosophy 3 min
- Aug 21 Modern Classics on Social Sciences 3 min
- Jul 8 Teacher - A Shepherd 3 min
- Jun 2 The Depp Verdict and Extremist Feminism 6 min
- Apr 24 3. Historical Experience Shaping How West Views Islam 4 min
- Apr 20 The Good & the Bad & the higher Self of Man 18 min
- Mar 27 Resolution of Conflicts 18 min
- Mar 1 Holding Pride in Ancient Science 3 min
- Feb 9 Excerpts from Maryam Jameelah's "Islam Versus the West" 4 min
- Jan 16 Excerpts from Karen Armstrong's Muhammad - Prophet for our time 3 min
- Jan 9 Q&A: If Prophet of Islam preached peace and tolerance how come there are so many war mongers amongst Muslims who take cues from the same life? 5 min
- Jan 2 Seeking Knowledge 2 min
- Dec 26, 2021 Achieving Peace Between and Within Nations 3 min
- Dec 19, 2021 Battle of Hunayn and the Pride in Numbers 3 min
- Dec 16, 2021 Guru Nanak on Muslims 1 min
- Dec 5, 2021 2. Material Roots of Western Civilization 8 min
- Nov 28, 2021 1. Moral Roots of Islamic Civilization 7 min
- Nov 21, 2021 Culture, Religion and the Modern Muslim Man 7 min
- Nov 5, 2021 Be chamha aabi zam zam 1 min
- Oct 31, 2021 Building a Progressive Society 11 min
- Oct 21, 2021 Instruction of the Student - Imam Zarnuji 13 min
- Oct 20, 2021 Enlightenment or Unenlightenment of our Nature - Plato 8 min
- Oct 18, 2021 Prophet Muhammad (saw) in the Qur'an 3 min
- Oct 12, 2021 Relevance of Indian Philosophical Thought 10 min
- Sep 27, 2021 Intelligence or Good Looks 3 min
- Sep 21, 2021 Proclaim! All of you who care, Proclaim! 4 min
- Sep 14, 2021 Kaashif and Baatin on Love 3 min
- Sep 11, 2021 How to practice faith? 20 min
- Aug 23, 2021 Women Liberation – An alternative viewpoint 10 min
- Aug 12, 2021 The Khwarij of today 4 min
- Aug 1, 2021 How to read a book – Part III 9 min
- Jul 25, 2021 How to read a book - Part II 14 min
- Jul 23, 2021 Man's Tragic Failure 6 min
- Jul 21, 2021 The Death of Socrates 6 min
- Jul 18, 2021 How to read a book! 12 min
- Jul 15, 2021 The Power of Forgiveness 7 min