Blog

This morning, I awoke to the anticipated news of Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory in New York City and many headlines were teeming with feigned excitement for his list of ‘firsts’. ‘First Muslim mayor’, ‘First South Asian mayor’ and some other, tired platitudes of socialism reentering the NYC political scene. Nonetheless,

The time of sword-bearing crusaders has long gone, but the struggle against Islamophobia remains. Today, a rather more insidious form of Muslim hate has fleeced itself into the British mainstream; and this time, he wears a suit and portrays his vitriol as concern.

Today is one year since Fadhl was launched. It is no longer an idea but a brand that has quietly grown into something far bigger than we could have ever imagined. Looking back, I don’t remember business plans or a strategic timelines. Rather, I am reminded of nights spent

Your first week of university is often imagined as a rite of passage, both an illuminating gateway into supposed freedom and wanton exposure to the vices that unfold on a university campus. For me, it has felt less like a canticle of novel experiences but rather like a furnace or

Istanbul is not a mere metropolis of mosques and mausoleums, but rather a palimpsest of civilisations, a living manuscript of ambition, conquest and triumph. Dominating from the shores of the Bosphorus, it appears a vision suspended between continents, a region mediating East and West, antiquity and modernity, faith and secularity.

Modern life dazzles with its platitudes of efficiency, innovation, and strategy. Corporations invest in consultants, governments draft policies, and organisations construct futures in detail. Despite this feverish planning, many workplaces and institutions remain brittle and society, restless. This disconnect is glaring, we produce endless tactics but seldom propagate people of

I do not rejoice at death. As a Muslim, I cannot. The sanctity of life is unassailable, no ideology, no fury, no outrage can make the spilling of innocent blood acceptable. Murder is not justice but actually the collapse of courage, the refusal to endure another’s speech. I sit

Not every prison is carved from stone nor every chain forged from iron. There exists an imprisonment worse than palsy and more severe than the stifling of breath. Rather the confinement of the heart, a state in which the soul finds itself unable to outstretch, towards the Divine. One may

In recent years the world has grown enamoured with the language of wellness. Scroll through your feed or browse through a bookstore and with certainty you will encounter endless exhortations in fasting intermittently, waking up before dawn, practicing gratitude, eating clean and the decluttering of your life. These ideas are

At first glance, Dubai feels like the future incarnate but stay long enough and you learn of the sacrifice that keeps its skyline standing. Upon returning from Dubai, my fingers lay restless on the keyboard, twitching with a desire to muster order into the chaos of Dubai’s dissociative identities and

Surah Al-Buruj, the eighty fifth chapter of the Qur’an, is a surah that does not just simply speak to our notions of logic and reason but rather reverberates through the chambers of our hearts. A short, striking passage that tells the story of believers thrown into a fiery pit,

Assalaamualaikum, I recently finished reading Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. A work that is often praised for its depth and philosophical ambition. There are novels that entertain, and then there are novels that interrogate. Dostoevsky’s final work does the latter, and it does so relentlessly. I was affected

Bosnia is not a country you stumble into. You arrive with some notion, however faint or romantic, of where you’re going. Perhaps the lingering images of the Srebrenica Genocide, fractured war stories from GCSE history or just a scenic desktop wallpaper with the bridge in Mostar - at least

One minute you’re making plans to get food and go bowling with a friend, the next you’re cancelling them because he’s broken his ankle. The way this world runs on a certainty only known by its Designer, a reality in the hands of only Allah. Our understanding of this life

As many of you know, I am currently undertaking a gap year in order to pursue some passion projects and attempting to figure out what I want to do, and who I wish to be in life - God, I sound like such a back-packing hippie. Amongst my other endeavours,

Assalaamualaikum and welcome back to The Issa Ishaq Blog... Some of you may have noticed an ignominious length of time has passed since I last wrote a piece for the blog. My lack of engagement, should at least be explained and furthermore followed by a commitment to frequent my keyboard

The Met Gala has seemingly sewn itself into the hem of liberal duplicity, walking the fine line between lunacy and à la mode. Ball gowns, bouffants and, recently, burgers have graced the gawking eyes of journalists and gym bros alike. All this kerfuffle, and for what? Mildly talented teens, washed

Encumbered by power. Emancipated by thought. To think. That is what frees us from the bondage of our oppressors. From Confucius to Machiavelli; from Al-Farabi to Dickens, the greatest thinkers have led the greatest battles. But their thoughts weren’t the sole obtainers of their notoriety and nomination, it was

From the moment of our conception, this ‘great’ western society, in which we find ourselves, is hell-bent on ushering in our mortal expiration, in dismantling our very understanding of life and its indomitable value. The most marginalised group of people in modern society are not the colourful ones, like we

When was the last time you turned on the television to watch the evening news? Or perused the daily paper’s ostensibly axiomatic headlines? The whirring of the legacy media machine has come to a seductive standstill - but what rendered asunder this conglomerate leviathan and what has delectably taken its

“We, this people, on a small and lonely planet Travelling through casual space, Past aloof stars, across the prairies of the sky, Must speak the truth, and we must live it.” - Angelou. The greatest freedom of all is the freedom to speak the words you wish, to utter, unabridged,