1) Do you believe in a concept of heaven & hell? Yes, you might be surprised to hear that I believe in these concepts in the literal sense of an afterlife that you head off to as an individual self — in contrast to some mystics who will insist these things are merely states of [...]
Archive for October, 2009
Seven questions for the Tailor
Posted in Cosmology, The path, tagged Mi'raj on October 26, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Slave girls, pornography and reality
Posted in Tailorite Tafsir, tagged pornography, reality, slave girls on October 25, 2009 | 1 Comment »
The following is a transcript of an interview between that dashing dilettante and neoplatonic man about town, Herman U. Ticz, for “Playsaint” magazine. It began with a discussion of the following hadiths and verses. Narrated Ibn Muhairiz: I saw Abu Said and asked him about coitus interruptus. Abu Said said, “We went with Allah’s Apostle, [...]
Jahannam and Ge Hinnom
Posted in Cosmology, Tailorite Tafsir, tagged city, compass, east, ge hinom, hell, hellfire, jahannam, london, north, south, west on October 11, 2009 | 3 Comments »
The Tailor was selling his wares in the lands north of the city. These areas are populated by tribes of militant apostates. A group of these northern people were discussing Islam’s notion of hell. One of their number said the following: “For me, one of the hardest things to get over was the fact that [...]
Angels, dogs and orders of infinity
Posted in Cosmology, Tailorite Tafsir, tagged angels, dogs, Islam, puppies on October 7, 2009 | 3 Comments »
A Sheikh and a Rabbi walked into a bar one day and found a Priest sitting on a stool with a dog by his side. (They had come for an interfaith dialogue event.) “I’m terribly sorry,” apologized the Sheikh, firmly. “But I cannot sit here.” “What’s the problem?” inquired the Rabbi. “The dog is an [...]
Scientific miracles in the Qur’an
Posted in Cosmology, Tailorite Tafsir, tagged Einstein, relativity, religion, science, science and Islam, scientific miracles in the Qu’an, snow white, Sufism, tragedy on October 5, 2009 | 14 Comments »
The Professor attended a conference run by the a group calling themselves the Association of Islamic Scientists, on Scientific Miracles in the Qur’an. Many of the talks concerned finding links between concepts of modern physics (models of the solar system, the big bang, etc) and biology (DNA, health and fitness, etc) and verses of the [...]
A wedding speech
Posted in Love poems on October 1, 2009 | 2 Comments »
This week in Almaty, the Tailor’s cousin (actually his wife Assel’s cousin-in-law Medina) got married to a young man named Umar. The following is an edited transcript of the Tailor’s mother’s speech. Alhumdulilah, friends and family are gathered to celebrate the wedding of our daughter Medina and our son Umar. My husband and I congratulate [...]
