The source: surah al-Qadr Surah al-Qadr is the 97th chapter of the Quran, containing 5 verses: إِنَّا أَنزَلْنَاهُ فِي لَيْلَةِ الْقَدْرِ وَمَا أَدْرَاكَ مَا لَيْلَةُ الْقَدْرِ لَيْلَةُ الْقَدْرِ خَيْرٌ مِّنْ أَلْفِ شَهْرٍ تَنَزَّلُ الْمَلَائِكَةُ وَالرُّوحُ فِيهَا بِإِذْنِ رَبِّهِم مِّن كُلِّ أَمْرٍ سَلَامٌ هِيَ حَتَّىٰ مَطْلَعِ الْفَجْرِ Indeed, we sent it down [the Quran] on the… Continue reading The Night of Destiny
Despite the fact that Muslims comprise only 1% of the American population, Islam is a topic we frequently encounter in the public sphere: we hear it in discussions about our foreign policy, about the ongoing European refugee crisis, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and so on. But rarely are we exposed to the religion in an… Continue reading Sufi Sundays: Introduction
Introduction For many, religion is an idea whose time has passed. Science, which has split the atom and traveled to distant planets, has shown us no sign of a 'creator God' worthy of acknowledgement. The technological progress of our era has reduced religious belief to a helpful superstition at best, or a… Continue reading An essay on religious truth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUvFeyGxaaU Those who have seen (or in my case, binge-watched) the Comedy Central series Key and Peele may be familiar with this clip. A schoolyard bully's reign of harassment has one curious twist: he describes the deepest personal realities behind his every action and statement. The result of this obscene display is a… Continue reading ‘Key and Peele’ and the existence of meta-language
I sit down with two writers from the Guardian to discuss our impression of the flat earth conference in Denver, Colorado.
Last week I attended a gathering hosted by the Interfaith Youth Core, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing dialogue between members of diverse religious backgrounds. Specifically, the IFYC seeks to encourage religious pluralism in America's college campuses by supporting student groups in navigating the difficult and sometimes treacherous waters of interfaith relations. Their… Continue reading Coercion or conversation? The limits of religious dialogue
As a neuroscience major, I hold the (completely unbiased) view that the brain is the single most remarkable object in the universe. Its structure is the culmination of 4 billion years of unlikely development, beginning with simple biomolecules and exploding into a dynamic, hyperconnected network whose complexity we're still trying to decipher today.… Continue reading Contorting reality: cosmology’s strangest objects
In the second episode of the interfaith dialogues series, Shepherd and Farid are joined by pastor Kyle in a discussion on prophethood, the divine Logos, symbolic language, and the trinity.
In recent years we've seen political activism rise to an all-time high. The streets are frequently chiming with the buzz of protest: we march in Charlottesville, we march for 'Our Lives', for women, for science, and so on. Political collectives are increasingly popular, from Blacklivesmatter, Antifa, to The Proud Boys, and besides these… Continue reading Jung, Sowell, and the psychology of mass-minded politics
I'm joined by Cadell Last in a discussion about the phenomenon of 'social justice warriors' and the forces that underlie it.
