How to Detox, Refresh and Reconnect with Beautiful Islam: A Short Course

A response to the many messages I receive about doubt and crises of faith

Greetings of Peace dear Friends,

I pray you are well in these darkest of times. I continue to believe that in this moment, one of the most important acts of resistance we can each individually engage in is healing, education and self-empowerment, especially when it comes to our faith convictions. I regularly receive correspondence from people around the world who struggle with doubt and crises of faith as Muslims who are navigating an Islam-hating world, the evil fruit of years of investment into an Islamophobia Industry. How else can we justify the live-streamed gen*cide and ethnic cleansing taking place in Palestine, funded by US dollars with the tacit complicity of the rest of the world?

When mainstream corporate media teaches the world that Muslims and Islam are the enemy, that Islam is backwards, oppressive and misogynistic; that Muslims themselves are all potential terrorists and adhere to the logic of violence and irrationality, the obvious conclusion is that they deserve to be eliminated.

As ethical Muslims, we have no choice except to do everything possible to stand up to injustice, fortify our knowledge and faith, and as I mention in my latest YouTube video, build our spiritual armor so that when we hear something ugly, irrational or backwards regarding our faith, our internal alarm bells will sound off. The more knowledge one holds in their reservoir, the louder and more distinct those alarm bells will be.

In my journey, I have found that there is nothing like the freedom and liberation that come with the conviction that Islam is truly beautiful. To arrive at that confidence requires an investment of time and energy into learning and questioning. In this video, I share a short course of study that was instrumental for me in gaining this conviction and confidence.

At the beginning of my journey as a young Muslim convert, I did not know enough to be able to discern good knowledge from bad. But God arranged that I would be introduced to (and eventually marry) one of the most learned Islamic scholars and jurists of our time. Over the course of our marriage, I edited and was actively involved in the publication of his scholarship and given the opportunity to learn Islam and Islamic law expansively and with great detail.

Among the most important outcomes of this real-time education was building my own intellectual foundation and moral framework for seeing the world as an ethical Muslim. Knowledge is power, but more importantly, it is liberation.

I believe that this knowledge base and vibrant ethical framework formed the spiritual armor I needed to protect and guard me against attacks upon my faith and my belief system. It allowed me to make sense of the Islam-hating world, and gave me the tools to navigate the misogyny, ignorance and quite frankly, the stupidity I often encounter from both non-Muslims and Muslims themselves.

More importantly, it created space for me to focus on my personal relationship with God, so I was not caught up in wondering how a loving God could possibly expect me to believe and follow an inconsistent, sometimes ugly, sometimes irrational, sometimes misogynistic faith. That ugliness comes from human interpretations, power plays and ignorance - not God.

At the heart of this understanding is the conviction that “God is beautiful and God loves beauty,” which is the premise of one book I discuss in my video: The Search for Beauty in Islam: A Conference of the Books by Khaled Abou El Fadl, one of the most important books on Islam in our day and age. The idea that anything that is morally ugly cannot, by definition, be of the Divine, is in itself the only heuristic needed for any human being to find God. The corollary is to know that the most direct line to God will always be the most morally beautiful path. One does not need intellectual study to understand this premise, only a vibrant heart and conscience.

In the video, I also discuss the other books I had the great blessing to edit, know and grow with. Each book was a new liberation. I also provide links to our Usuli Institute video journeys with the Qur’an and most recently, the life of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Spending three years delving into the ethical teachings of all 114 chapters of the Qur’an only cemented the conviction that God’s elevated message to humanity is beautiful, humanistic, sophisticated, nuanced, fully rational and consistently coherent. Our Project Illumine (Tafsir and Sirah) journey is the balm and the fire needed to calm and ignite one’s heart, soul and intellect anew.

For anyone struggling with doubt, crises of faith, confusion or sadness, I hope that this short course will make all the difference.

It pains me every day that I cannot do more to stop the gen*cide in Palestine. But I pray that making a video with the intention to hopefully, God-willing, help someone out there feel more empowered and liberated in their faith, can somehow make a difference. I pray that anyone who needs to watch this video will find it. May God accept and make it so. And, may we all do our part to stand up to injustice and create goodness in the world in whatever small way we can. Ameen.