r/MuslimReads

Descartes, the philosopher of skepticism decided one day to doubt everything, he decided to discard all beliefs, including reliability of his own senses. But he realized he couldn't doubt his own senses because he couldn't be able to exist if he can think, and concluded with "_cogito ergo sum_" which translates to "I think, therefore I am" which means that I think, so I exist.

Later critical philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche and Georg Lichtenberg argued that Descartes sneaked a massive assumption by using "I", they felt "thinking is occurring" or, "it is thinking" was more accurate;

• Critics believe, that by using "I", Descartes already assumed what he was trying to prove, saying that while there is a thought, there isn't a unified existing self behind this.

• According to Nietzsche, "I" is a grammartical illusion, he believed that this is a result of how language is structured: every action having a "doer"

But years ago, Ibn Sina already solved this problem by his thought experiment known as "The Floating Man".

In the experiment, a man is created instantaneously (or suspended) in midair, fully developed and formed perfectly, without any memories, no sensory experiences, no physical senses, not even from their own body. His vision is veiled and his limbs are too far to touch each other. Would this person know he exists? yes he would.

https://preview.redd.it/c10yprk1g7rg1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b57a0be1d4606feeea455f51199cf42ee9b4aba5

I picked this up mostly because the title intrigued me. Seven lessons. Physics. Brief.

I'm only three chapters in, but it's already doing something I didn't quite expect. The way Rovelli writes about light, space, the cosmos doesn't feel cold or clinical rather like a wonder.

And that's where it connects to something deeper for me. These phenomena such as space curving, particles behaving strangely, the architecture of the universe are creation. Allah is Al-Zaahir, the Manifest. Maybe one way He is manifest is in exactly this: the intricate, astonishing way the physical world holds together.

Khol Aankh Zameen Dekh, Falak Dekh Fiza Dekh

Mashriq Se Ubharte Howay Sooraj Ko Zara Dekh

Iss Jalwa Be Parda Ko Pardon Mein Chhupa dekh

- Allama Iqbal

Has anyone else read it? I'd love to know how it landed for you, especially if you found yourself thinking about faith while reading it.

“Ah!' said the gentleman. 'A Turk turns his face, after washing it well, to the East, when he says his prayers; these good people, after giving their faces such a rub against the World as to take the smiles off, turn with no less regularity, to the darkest side of Heaven. Between the Mussulman and the Pharisee, commend me to the first!”

In this passage from Oliver Twist, Dickens uses sharp satire to attack religious hypocrisy, not to make a theological comparison between Islam and Christianity. The gentleman contrasts a “Turk” (a Muslim), who “turns his face, after washing it well, to the East” when he prays, with certain “good people” whom he compares to “Pharisees.” The Muslim is described as performing a clear, disciplined, and sincere ritual—washing and then facing a definite direction (Mecca, which lies east of England). This symbolizes order, intention, and authenticity. By contrast, the so-called pious Christians metaphorically “rub their faces against the World as to take the smiles off,” meaning they deliberately adopt a severe, joyless expression as if holiness requires visible gloom. Instead of turning toward light or hope, they turn to the “darkest side of Heaven,” an ironic phrase suggesting a religion focused on fear, judgment, severity, and moral superiority rather than mercy or joy. The term “Pharisee,” drawn from the New Testament portrayal of religious leaders criticized by Jesus for outward piety but inward hypocrisy, had come in Victorian England to mean someone self-righteous, legalistic, and spiritually insincere. Dickens’ final remark—“Between the Mussulman and the Pharisee, commend me to the first!”—is deliberately provocative to his Christian audience: he suggests that a sincere believer of another faith is morally preferable to a hypocritical adherent of one’s own. In the Victorian context, where church attendance was closely tied to social respectability and where strands of Evangelical seriousness emphasized sin, discipline, and visible moral austerity, Dickens frequently criticized forms of religion that were cold, judgmental, and indifferent to suffering—especially the suffering of the poor and children, a central concern of Oliver Twist. He was not anti-religion; rather, he believed deeply in Christian ethics of charity, kindness, and compassion, and he objected to institutions and individuals who performed religiosity while lacking humanity. The Muslim in this comparison functions symbolically as a figure of straightforward devotional sincerity, while the Pharisee represents performative piety and moral pride. Through irony and contrast, Dickens advances a broader moral principle that runs throughout his work: authenticity is superior to religious label, inward goodness is superior to outward display, and true faith should produce warmth, mercy, and sympathy—not severity, gloom, and self-righteousness.

The above expansion is from ChatGPT.
What I want to remark is that we, ourselves should reflect on our own society, are we becoming a society devoid of care, empathy, charity, kindness, and compassion and becoming too legalistic, ritualistic, outward piety, cold and judgemental?

As a community we are aloof from the society, we shield ourselves from the society and box ourselves in our close family and friends, do we bother to be to know and care for the downtrodden in our own localities, to empathise with them and care for them.

Are we more focused on legalities more than heart?

https://reddit.com/link/1s41m2e/video/kmwhgn8dmcrg1/player

This is an Arabic love poem that predates Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet by 700 years.

It's about Majnun (Qais ibn Al-Mawlawah) and Layla Al-Amriyya from Banu tribe. Majnun means madman in Arabic. They were childhood friends but as they grew up, it became harder for them to meet each other. Qais wrote love poems for her. When he asks for her father's hand, he refused. She was instead married to Ibn Salam who was a wealthy nobleman from Thaqif tribe, because Qaus had kind of publicly declared his love which was frowned upon in Bedouin culture.

Layla was taken far away with her husband. Qais was sick from sorrow and yearning. His father took him to Hajj hoping that Allah heals him. Qais prayed to be blessed with for Layla's love forever. After returning he abandoned his tribe.

After this he wandered like a madman in the desert composing verses to animals and even wind.

Some accounts say he met Ibn Salam, who was moved by his pain but feared the scandal and refused to let him see her.

Layla heard about this meaning and cried. She died out of sickness.

Qais hearing this wandered once more. Days later, a traveller found his body near Layla's grave.

This story is beautiful because it shows that Arabs could also write stories well regardless of how much we underestimated their past culture and history.

Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali lived during the height of the Islamic Golden Age, but his analysis of money, morality, and power feels like it was written for the 21st century. This video uncovers how a medieval scholar understood the psychology of wealth, the danger of corruption, and the economic consequences of losing integrity — long before modern economics existed. For anyone trying to understand today’s financial system, inflation, speculation, or inequality, Al-Ghazali’s ideas offer a shockingly relevant roadmap.

Key Facts & Insights

• Al-Ghazali argued that money is a tool, not the goal — its value comes from the trust behind it, not the metal itself. • He described hoarded wealth as “dead money,” warning that idle capital destroys circulation and weakens societies. • He condemned speculation and crisis profiteering centuries before modern debates on market manipulation. • He identified trust as the foundation of all economic systems, anticipating today’s concepts of moral hazard and information asymmetry. • He warned rulers that currency debasement is theft, predicting modern inflation crises with uncanny accuracy. • His writings linked economic collapse to corruption, not scarcity — a lesson echoed in today’s global financial instability. • Many of his insights predate Western economic theory by hundreds of years, making him one of history’s earliest analysts of money and power.

Ulysses by James Joyce is a particularly hard novel to read. Now here is a passage I want to share with all of us readers.

"He held out his copybook. The word Sums was written on the headline. Beneath were sloping figures and at the foot a crooked signature with blind loops and a blot. Cyril Sargent: his name and seal.

— Mr Deasy told me to write them out all again, he said, and show them to you, sir.

Stephen touched the edges of the book. Futility.

— Do you understand how to do them now? he asked.

— Numbers eleven to fifteen, Sargent answered. Mr Deasy said I was to copy them off the board, sir.

— Can you do them yourself? Stephen asked.

— No, sir.

Ugly and futile: lean neck and tangled hair and a stain of ink, a snail's bed. Yet someone had loved him, borne him in her arms and in her heart. But for her the race of the world would have trampled him underfoot, a squashed boneless snail. She had loved his weak watery blood drained from her own. Was that then real? The only true thing in life? His mother's prostrate body the fiery Columbanus in holy zeal bestrode. She was no more: the trembling skeleton of a twig burnt in the fire, an odour of rosewood and wetted ashes. She had saved him from being trampled underfoot and had gone, scarcely having been. A poor soul gone to heaven: and on a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red reek of rapine in his fur, with merciless bright eyes scraped in the earth, listened, scraped up the earth, listened, scraped and scraped."

This passage is when Stephen the teacher is helping his futile student. Stephen thinks, no matter how untidy and futile the student is, someone a mother carried him, fed him, looked after him and still loves him deeply. It's a simple thought, but it's relevant because today we see the youth neglecting and even growing angry towards their parents. Some parents are harsh on pressures, indeed, but we are overlooking the genuine universal parental love in every race.

Eid Mubarak, although a little late, to all muslims

Oguz Atay is a Turkish modern or postmodern writer, and I want to read his novels. The only problem is, I don't know turkish, so I need translations. his work is largely untranslated. I hear that his work Tutunamayanlar is the turkish Ulysses, and even people who know turkish don't read his works because it's too hard, which might be the sole reason for its lack of translators. His works, especially Tutunamayanlar (The Disconnected) intrigue me and many other readers, and it would be very nice if someone knows a translator.

"The past resembles the future more than one drop (resembles) another"

Socioeconomic Sustainability through Moral and Social Capital, p.92