Signs of the Times – 12
By Sheikh Imran Hosein
Sufism (Tasawwuf) Somebody asked Abu Hafs: “Who is a Sufi?” He answered: “A Sufi does not ask who a Sufi is.” Sufism (Tasa wwuf) is generally accepted the name for Islamic mysticism because the word Tasawwuf meaning “mysticism” has been use in Muslim society for long time. To understand the concept of Sufism first we…
When the caustic Evelyn Waugh visited the majestic sixth century creation of Emperor Justinian, one subsequently enlarged, enriched and encrusted by various rulers, he felt underwhelmed. “‘Agia’ will always win the day for one,” he wrote of Istanbul’s holiest of holies, Hagia Sophia, in 1930. “A more recondite snobbism is to say ‘Aya Sofia’, but…
Eschatology is one of the fundamental dimensions of contemporary world geopolitics. A geopolitologist can no longer exclude the eschatological aspect of international relations from his analyses, since the leaders of the two largest nuclear powers in the world place the “Apocalypse”, the “martyr” leading to “paradise”, “Satan” and the “Antichrist” at the heart of their…
By Sheikh Imran Hosein
The United Arab Emirates has unexpectedly found itself the focus of global attention after signing an agreement with Israel on 13 August that covers a full normalisation of relations. The talks were mediated by the US. The UAE has therefore become the third Arab state to recognise Israel (after Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in…
As chief conductor of the saint factory, Pope John Paul II was always going to be, in time, canonised. Almost 500 saints were created under his watch. The previous 600 years had seen 300. But declaring him a saint in 2014, a mere nine years after his death, was speedy by the standards of the…