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In the Name of God بسم الله
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About this blog

Ideas about modern issues from an Islamic perspective. Those posts which were written with the help of GenAI have been spun off into a separate blog as have the posts which contained a semantic field analysis of the Qur'an.

The pinned entries in this blog are longer and articles and unpinned articles are much shorter and the latter may likely be works in progress. The longer articles are followed by a ChatGPT critique to help identify areas for future improvement.

Entries in this blog

Lifestyle

Unlimited pleasure

[Headings added 25 August 2025] Introduction There are arguments given by atheists challenging religious beliefs, and resulting practices that science does not support and which atheists argue should be abandoned by believers. In this essay, I want to look at one example, where I think science is catching up with religion. Happiness and the story of sugar The industrial farming of sugar by Europeans in the West Indies, starting from the eighteenth century, is a goo
Haji 2003

Haji 2003 in Lifestyle

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Lifestyle

Reconfiguring Happy

[Illustration added 2nd June 2025] I thought I’d put this together based on the discussion in laith’s spirituality thread. The issue of happiness arose because striving for spirituality can involve lifestyle changes and I think a barrier to that can be a feeling that such a lifestyle will diminish one’s enjoyment of life. Which leads us to wondering what it means to be happy and whether that can be changed. Looking around me I see all sorts of people doing very different thin
Haji 2003

Haji 2003 in Lifestyle

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Lifestyle

Music in Islam

In 2010 we did a little project that involved analysing the content of Shiachat posts over the preceding few years to capture what people were saying about Music on Shiachat. The final report is attached. Music in Islam v.1.pdf
Haji 2003

Haji 2003 in Lifestyle

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Lifestyle

Hatshepsut & Nefertari

The view from the Temple of Hatshepsut. Maryam had the idea for how this would work and it did with some post-processing.   Both ancient Egyptian queens and both with a seemingly new cult in the 21st century. Obviously, the cult is not among actual worshippers but amongst tourists keen to see their monuments. Nefertari was the favourite wife of Pharaoh Ramesses II and as for Hatshepsut this is what Wikipedia has to say: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatshepsut While I
Haji 2003

Haji 2003 in Lifestyle

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Lifestyle

Ostracism, shame and societal regulation

Ostracism It was while visiting the Agora in Athens a few years ago that I came across the concept of ostracism, as described below: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ancient-athenians-voted-kick-politicians-out-if-enough-people-didnt-them-180976138/ I think it is interesting how modern societies that claim to have taken concepts such as democracy from the Greeks have missed out on something potentially very valuable. But I think it also points to a type of regulatory mecha
Haji 2003

Haji 2003 in Lifestyle

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Lifestyle

Self-control

Summary This post is based on western academic literature on self-control. We will see that self-control by individuals is used to fight desire and can depend on principles, a monitoring process and personal capability (willpower). Willpower can vary between individuals, but it can be developed. Self control vs. desire In this 1991 paper by Stephen Hoch and George Loewenstein: http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/sds/docs/loewenstein/TimeInconsistConSelf.pdf it’s argued that cons
Haji 2003

Haji 2003 in Lifestyle

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Lifestyle

Delaying gratification

Summary Delayed gratification is associated with better long-term outcomes for individuals. Time spent in prayer and other religious rituals are means by which individuals delay the gratification of enjoying worldly experiences and they are an investment in the gratification of rewards to be gained in the afterlife. Moreover time spent in these activities changes what counts as gratification for participants. How delayed gratification works  One of the ideas that helps explain the
Haji 2003

Haji 2003 in Lifestyle

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