I clarified the use of ‘vague’ morality in reference to the abortion article and Christians.

Had a great holiday weekend, working on some new stuff for the blog tonight. Hope everyone is well, inshahallah.

I’m sorry I didn’t have time to get to the contentions as I promised, more work than expected for the past few days and also a busy memorial day weekend planned. Helping my good friend ATA paint his new place tomorrow. Also have some weddings to attend to this weekend so I’m quite booked. Did a nice 45 min bike ride, longer and farther than last time.

I’m updating the links on the right hand side, and maybe later adding some more decoration to the site. Kind of bored with this look.

I breezed through these past few contentions, just because I believe some of them are fairly simple to understand and expanding on them is just unnecessary. I figure if someone has a question, they will ask.

Another note, I am not a student of Shaykh Abdal Hakim, and I have no insight into his Contentions except what by what I have read of his work. Just another disclaimer.

Also as a reminder for the non-Muslim visitors, “Shaykh” is a word that is literally translated to “Old Man”, but is used Islamically for scholars or other forms of educators. Traditional Islam has no clergy who have special religious rights upon non-scholarly Muslims. The respect I show for Shaykhs Hamza Yusuf, Abdal Hakim Murad, Nazim al-Haqqani, Hisham, etc, is simply respect for their work, knowledge, and spiritual station.

We are getting approximately 100 hits a day which is just great. I also know that Google has linked to this site on many keywords in which I appear in the top 10. “Traditional Islam”, “Wahabi’s”, “Pictures of Hamza Yusuf”, “Changes since 9/11″ are all things that are bringing this blog up pretty quickly.

I need something else to write about regularly, lest this become a Contentions blog rather than whatever I want it to be (vague resource on a the thoughts of a traditional Muslim).

Maybe I will write about Science and it’s relationship with Islam tomorrow.

I’ve just finished upgrading and a few things (comments esp) don’t work. I’m working on it.

– Update: Everything should be running smooth now.

I’ve changed some things about the site:

1) Links will now pop-up. I love to do external references but it seemed to be annoying my local friends that you had to hit -back- to get back to me (strange that’s what I thought it was for? j/k)

2) Added a few plugins which changed the calendar and allow you to go back and forth in months.

3) Adding some code which changes the way extended entries work. If your browser supports it, you don’t get sent off the main page to the permalink anymore. I’m not sure this is better, but for now I’ll try it. I like everything about it except that when you choose to hide it has to adjust your position to the top of the article you were reading.

4) Yes, I will be adding images and changing the template more and more. I just have not had the ‘inspiration’ yet. I also want to add small icons that represent my categories. I have to think of something good for the top. I’m thinking of putting pictures that represent Mind, Body, and Soul and put plus signs between them. Also some arabic caligraphy needs to be added back in.

It’s all evolving.

let me just say something about the blog before I get started on the continuation, I’m writing this blog to vent certain frustrations with the Islamic community and have a single point where I can point people I meet to see where I fall on certain issues present within the Islamic world today. I can’t assume anyone is actually reading this site since if I make that my reason, and the hit counter doesn’t budge, I would lose all motivation in posting. So as of right now I’m doing this for me. (am I convincing myself here? not sure!)

But! Since I’ve gotten a few hits, I’m assuming this is of interest to a few people. As I post more and more on other blogs we may see more visitors coming to this site. I hope that is the case and unfortunately the only way I know that is by the hit counter and comments and karma votes. I do hope for comments and enjoy the votes so keep it coming.