The Middle Ground Podcast

Following vs. Perfection: What Is the Sunnah?

﷽ In this episode I discuss my brief participation in the the conference, If He Were Among Us, put on by the Rahma Center in Lake Forest, CA. I noticed that many of the

Integrity in an Age of Unlived Words

﷽ By nature, we love an underdog. When a sports team “beats the odds” we love to cheer for them even if we were booing them just a week ago for losing. When momentum bu

Finding Your Security As A Muslim

﷽ Sūrat al-Maʿārij offers a sobering picture of the Day of Judgment: * a day when when a woman would abandon her own child; * a day when I man would offer his own mot

Riba, Robots, and the Panopticon!

﷽ It’s not just Muslims feeling the gaze of Big Brother these days: it seems everyone everywhere all the time is feeling like we’re all under the every-increasing watch

Hope & Faith in a Time of Absurdity

﷽ Welcome [back!] to Episode 50 of the Middle Ground Podcast with Imam Marc Manley and brother Dawud Aleman. We discuss our absences, life in the intervening year or so

Ideology Burnout?

﷽ Welcome back to another episode of the Middle Ground Podcast. This one will be short and sweet as I share some feedback from a brother who reached explaining that he

Islamic Psychology?

﷽ al-Ḥamdulillāh it was my pleasure to speak at the 10th Annual Family Symposium for Muslim Family Foundation: Roots of Wellness, alongside Dr. Deana Helmy, sister Ahla

The Truth Will Set You Free

﷽ al-Ḥamdulillāh I was invited again by the gracious folks at Masjid al-Fatiha of America, located in Azusa, California. I’ve worked closely with this family-run masjid

Fear, Love, and Mercy in the Qur’ān

﷽ Many Muslims today speak of “love”: for Allāh, for the Prophet ‎ﷺ, etc. And while having love for Allāh and the Prophet ‎ﷺ are indeed noble ambitions it would also se

How to Develop a Strong Relationship with the Qur’ān

﷽ So much of today’s “spiritual” discourse turns faith into a dopamine-trap where we seek to obtain, or in some cases, avoid, a certain mood. On this treadmill of mood

Are Non-Practicing Muslims Doing Islām Better Than Those That Do?

﷽ Welcome to Episode 46 of the Middle Ground Podcast. In this episode I want to discuss a new (and disturbing) trend I’ve noticed in the social media landscape, namely M

ʿAqīdah (Creed) Should Lead to Compassion

﷽ Welcome to Episode 45 of the Middle Ground Podcast. For this episode I’m sharing an excerpt from my Saturday class on ʿaqīdah, otherwise known as “creed”; i.e., the t

Muslims and Mamdani - The Need for Religious Clarity on Political Matters

﷽ Welcome to Episode 44 of the Middle Ground Podcast. Today, while driving to Jumu’ah, I wanted to share some thoughts of mine on the state of Muslim thinking and polit

Islām and Analog Determinism

﷽ Welcome to Episode 43 of the Middle Ground Podcast. Today I want to discuss the current paradox we’re living in: the paradox of “infinite” digital options. This parad

“We Were Here Already: Muslims & Sharī’ah in America”

﷽ Welcome back to the Middle Ground Podcast with Episode 42. Here, Imam Marc Manley takes into an important—and uncomfortable topic—that continues to stir headlines and

Live with Imam Marc Manley

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Feeling The Weight of the Prophet's Mantle

﷽ Before starting my Saturday Qur’ān class, Understanding the Qur’ān, where we read from Ibn Juzayy’s tafsīr, I shared a reflection on what it’s like to give a khuṭbah

The Believer Beyond Fatalism: Improvising with What Has Been Decreed For You (Qadr)

﷽ Modern life pushes us into two extremes: a hamster wheel of "progression" or paralyzing fatalism. Islam offers a different paradigm. We discussed, as part of our Satu

The Forgotten Virtue in Avoiding Major Sins

﷽ Many of us focus on repentance, but did you know there’s a reward simply for avoiding major sins? Allāh says in Sūrah al-Shūrā, وَمَا عِندَ ٱللَّهِ خَيْرٌۭ وَأَبْقَى

Everything Flows by God's Decree

﷽ The following is an excerpt from my Sunday Arabic class, The Arabic Reader. I wanted to illustrate how pre-modern scholars of the Qur’ān, in this case Ibn Abī Zayd al