Any and all activism that is bereft of merciful love or loving mercy is not Islamic and can never be, says Shaykh Riad Saloojee. Why do Muslims, when asked whether God is love, respond with, “No. He is Merciful?” Rahmah in Arabic is not mercy. Rahmah has the meaning of merciful-love or loving-mercy. The word […]

Wisdom is not knowing good and bad but knowing the best good and worst bad – discerning the subtle shades of benefit and welfare in both the secular and spiritual world, says Shaykh Riad Saloojee. No action of the Divine is irrational — though it might be supra-rational. Nothing that the Divine does is in […]

The discourse of activism is often framed through the lens of seeking justice. But what is justice? asks Shaykh Riad Saloojee. In our Islamic understanding, one of the Names of the Divine is the Infinitely Just, or Al ‘Adl. As we have mentioned previously, Allah possesses Names of Majesty and Rigor (jalal), which signify power, […]

A social activist who wishes to produce true change must fully internalize and actualize the values inherent in the Divine Names of Allah, says Shaykh Riad Saloojee. At this point, the intersection between activism and Islamic spirituality, and therefore our paradigm of spiritual activism, should stand out in sharp relief. As a summary, we can […]