Category: Islamic Topics
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What Is Taqiyya? (And What It Isn’t)
How an obscure survival doctrine became the counter-Islam crowd’s favourite lie Someone posts it online like a trump card. A thread about Islam, a debate about Muslims, a comment section under a news article — and there it is. Taqiyya. Dropped with the confidence of someone who thinks they’ve just revealed the cheat code to…
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The Islam Hustle
How Politicians, Profiteers, and Foreign Governments Are Playing You You’re not wrong to be angry about Islam. You’re just angry at the wrong people. I know that’s not what you expected to read. You clicked on this because the title confirmed something you already believed — that something about Islam isn’t right, that someone’s…
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The Shi’a Sunni Divide
A July, 6 1959 fatwah from Al-Azhar made great strides towards healing and reconciliation in the historic divide between Sunni and Shi’a. After 9 years of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq which allowed the Shi’a government of Iran to make significant political gains in the Middle East, Al-Azhar saw a massive increase in Salafist…
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The Myth of Wahhabism
The Myth of Wahhabism by James S. Coates Introduction Over the years, I have had the pleasure of working with many types of people in the Islamic community—a cross-section of ideologies, cultures and sects. I have taught classes with them, represented them in the media, and learned about them from them. When someone opens themselves…
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Islamic Art and Photography
Long History of Islamic Art In dealing with the issue of photography, we naturally have to reach back and talk about Islamic art since they both deal with the thing people object to, images. Art creativity has been around since long before the time of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), but as Islam expanded to new…
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Aisha’s Marriage Age
Aisha’s Marriage Age The Core Problem: Certainty Where None Exists There is no scholarly consensus on Aisha’s age at marriage. The hadith literature contains multiple contradictory accounts, and anyone claiming certainty—whether asserting she was six, nine, or nineteen—is revealing their agenda rather than their scholarship. To arbitrarily say Aisha was six or nine years old…
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Jihad
What is Jihad? The Struggle by James S. Coates The Mistranslation of “Jihad” The term “Jihad” is almost always mistranslated by Westerners as “Holy War.” In fact, the term “Jihad” literally translates to “struggle against.” “Holy War” today is often misapplied to Jihad because of Western Orientalist and Christian cultural understanding of the Crusades. The…
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Shari’ah
What is Shari’ah? The Path by James S. Coates As recent politics has put Islam and Islamic Shari’ah into the spotlight of public discourse, there is every reason you all should know about the topic of Shari’ah. A ton of misinformation has been circulating about Shari’ah and I’d suggest paying close attention to this post…
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The Sunnah
What is Sunnah? Mainstream Core Concepts by James S. Coates There are three main usages of the word “Sunnah” among Muslims. Understanding these distinctions is important because the term appears frequently in Islamic discourse with different meanings depending on context. Although Muslims worldwide agree on the Qur’an and these basic concepts, building past the foundations…
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The Hadith
What are Hadith? Secondary (or Supplemental) Books by James S. Coates The Primary Principle Perhaps the most important thing to understand about hadith is that the Qur’an is more authoritative. If there is not a direct Qur’anic reference to cross-reference and unequivocally confirm a hadith, then the hadith holds less authority. This principle underlies…
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