Faithful Reflections

Three questions worth taking seriously — and ten popular answers that should be retired Three Atheist Questions About Islam, Answered Honestly Islamic Research Notes · Aqeedah · Extended edition · 41 minute read In short Does God exist? Why is there suffering? Why Islam rather than anything else? These are the three questions that actually come up, and most Muslim answers to them are weaker than they need to be — not because the case is weak, but because we keep reaching for arguments that collapse the moment somebody checks them. This is the long version: the arguments I think hold, where each one stops, what the classical theologians actually said about evil, the atheist replies that deserve answering rather than dismissing, and ten popular proofs I think we should retire. That last part may be the more useful half. What's on this page Why most of these articles fail Question one: does God exist? Where the God arguments stop Three atheist replies that des...

Two verses, one word, and about fifteen answers — only one of which the Prophet gave himself Seven Mathani: Al-Fatihah and Quran 15:87 Explained Islamic Research Notes · Quran Studies · 38 minute read In short The word mathani appears exactly twice in the Qur'an, and one of those places calls something "seven of the mathani " without saying seven of what. The Prophet answered the question directly, in Bukhari, twice: it is al-Fatihah. But the classical scholars still recorded a dozen other readings, and the reason they did is more interesting than the answer. This is the long version: the root, the grammar, the hadith and their chains, al-Fatihah's other names, every serious classical reading, the Sufi and Imami inward interpretations, the modern structural theories, the academic debate, and where al-Albani, Nouman Ali Khan and the Farahi school actually stand. What's on this page The question, and why it stayed open What the root S-Th-N ca...