How cyber pirates anonymously torrent movies on the internet

For my views on Internet piracy see my essay: Why Digital Piracy is Ethical and Necessary We all know that you, as a law-abiding citizen, would never download a car. And yet there are people out there who download movies for free and refuse to add a few more bucks to the billions of dollars that […]

Ending technological servitude: On the need for tariffs on Internet companies (and others)

In my view the most important reason why protectionism is necessary, or at least one of the most important reasons, is the prevention of technological servitude. A simple example illustrates the point: Your country cannot be a pioneer in aerospace technologies if your country is not producing airplanes. If all of your airplanes come from China, the […]

President Trump is already more than twice as famous as President Obama on the Internet

Google returns 174 million results for the search term “barack obama”, while returning 462 million results for “donald trump”. Donald Trump’s beats him by a factor of 2.65. This means that, if Google is telling the truth, Donald Trump already has more than twice as many mentions on the Internet than Barack Obama. Interesting for […]

IslamQA: On avoiding looking at inappropriate images on the internet

I am a 20 year old lady, and I have this problem of constantly clicking on ‘inappropriate images’ and when I’m done, I feel bad and ask for Forgiveness, but it’s become so repetitive! How do I remove sexual desire from within (just until marriage)? I don’t even talk to the opposite sex, but what […]

The Ultimate Programming Crash Course (Learn with JavaScript)

Master the Basics of Coding in Under Two Hours in Interactive Steps and Visual Examples Methods for using this guide: View the online version on this page (scroll down) Download a free PDF version Download a free Mobi version (for e-readers and ebook-reading apps, zipped) Buy the Kindle version on Amazon Buy the paperback version […]

IslamQA: The Islamic View of Sex Education and Adolescent Exposure to Sexual Scenes in Novels and Films

My child loves to read books. Some of the books she wants to read mention sex. She is 13 years old and I don’t know when to allow her to read those books or even when to tell her about sex. I need help with this. Thank you! When a child reaches puberty (and I […]

Fixing the kworker CPU usage / ACPI errors issue on a Skylake motherboard (ASRock Z170 Pro4)

In which ASRock bricks my motherboard and a random $10 Chinese device comes to the rescue, with the help of a German gentleman Since I no longer trust the spyware that is Windows 10, I have wanted to move my main PC (6700K CPU, R9 290 graphic card, ASRock Z170 Pro4 motherboard) to Linux for […]

A bash script for automatically restarting an unresponsive Apache server only when needed

One of my servers responds to about 100,000 requests per day. Apache would randomly hang a few times a day, taking all of the websites down. I tried every solution I could find online to prevent Apache from hanging, but nothing helped, so I decided to stop wasting time on it and simply develop a […]

IslamQA: What to do if you cannot find interesting and like-minded Muslims to befriend

I have experienced bad things in Muslim communities for so many years that it led me to giving up religion and I went astray. After going through many hardships in life alhamdulillah I came back to the Deen to take shelter. However I’m afraid of mixing with Muslims again. They are shallow at their thinking, […]

Why Digital Piracy is Ethical and Necessary

Disclaimer: This is an academic essay on the ethics of digital piracy. It is not a call for breaking the law by pirating. Some jurisdictions punish piracy severely, therefore the risk is entirely your own if you choose to break the law by pirating content. For my proposal for a digital library that makes piracy […]

IslamQA: “Why are Muslims so judgmental? Muslim men’s expectations of women are too high.”

Why are many Muslims so close minded and judgmental. I feel like I can’t keep it up. The expectations (especially from Muslim men) is way too high. Sometimes I feel like giving up . Especially the issue of modesty etc I don’t feel like we are being given the space and time and freedom to […]

A Traditionalist Critique of the Islamic Prohibition on Taṣwīr (Making Drawings and Statues of Humans and Animals)

To many Muslims today, it will sound patently absurd if someone were to tell them that it is a mortal sin for them to draw a cat. But some religious scholars would tell you that drawing a cat is an act of taṣwīr (the depiction of living things in paintings, sculptures and elsewhere), a sin for which […]

IslamQA: Number of hadiths in the six major collections

As-salaamu ‘alaykum, wa rahmatu-llaahi wa barakaatuh. Which of the six well-known Hadith collections contain the largest number of Hadith? Jazak-Allahu khayran. Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh, The number of hadiths that are mentioned in both Bukhari and Muslim are 2514 (excluding repetitions). Below are the hadith counts from the major collections according to Wikipedia: Sahih […]

The Sayings of Ibn al-Jawzi

Selected and Translated by Ikram Hawramani Copyright © 2017 Ikram Hawramani A Brief Primer on Ibn al-Jawzi Abū l-Faraj ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzī (1116 – 1201 CE) was a major historian, hadith scholar, jurist and popular preacher in medieval Baghdad. He is said to have written over a hundred works (some mention as many as […]

The 12-Year Min-Max Average: A Simple Method for Calculating Real, Legitimate Economic Growth and Canceling Out Central Bank Manipulations and other Noise

Introduction Real economic growth is different from the increase in GDP that comes from monetary expansion. The 12-year min-max method that I have come up with is a way of calculating a country’s GDP growth rate over a 12-year period that aims to cancel out “fake” growth caused by monetary expansion and boom-bust cycles by […]

Measuring Economic and Military Potentials of World Nations with the Human Genetic-Cultural Quality Index (HQI)

Introduction What is the biggest predictor of a country’s scientific output, industrial capacity and military prowess? It is not geographic size. For instance, Kazakhstan and Mongolia are huge compared to Israel and Switzerland, yet Israel and Switzerland far outdistance them in all measures of intellectual, technological and military attainment. It is not population. India’s 1.28 […]

IslamQA: Pakistan’s behind-the-times Islam

I am a Muslim woman and I don’t psychologically feel ready for marriage. But my mother who is Pakistani is telling me that what I’m doing is haram. She told me that apparently Bin-Baz said that every woman should get married regardless of their doubts. But Islam itself tells us that marriage isn’t obligatory. How […]

A Selection from Aqiday Mardia of Mawlawi Tawagozi by Baba Ali Qaradaghi

Mawlawi Tawagozi (1806-1882, known simply as Mawlawi in Kurdish) was an Islamic mystic and one of the great poets of Kurdistan, belonging to the Hawrami minority that I belong to. This book is a 160-page commentary on a small selection of Mawlawi’s 2450-verse poem Aqiday Mardia (The Approved Aqeedah), which tries to offer a journey through the field […]

IslamQA: Is the Deathly Hallows sign related to the “Illuminati”?

Is the Deathly Hallows sign illuminati or a sinful sign?? I know that the peace sign and all is signs of the devil, but is the deathly hollows simbol illuminati or the devils sign?? The Illuminati and other conspiracy theories are promoted on the internet so that people like you are distracted from the real […]

IslamQA: Islamic Strategies for Escaping a Sinful Life

19 year old boy here. It’s a serious issue but I’ll keep it short. I was exposed to pornography at a very young age and I still haven’t been able to get over it. And then came the time when I could mingle with the opposite sex and actually do things and since then I […]

Is Islam really pluralistic? An Islamic defense of pluralism

If Islamic teachings can be used to defend pluralism, that tells us something very important about the future of Islam. My views are not unique; they are similar to those of the great twentieth century Egyptian scholar Muḥammad ʿAbdallāh Drāz (1894 – 1958 CE), who defended a similar vision in many of his articles and […]

The Quran and the Shape of the Earth: Is It Round or Flat?

There is some propaganda on the Internet about the Quran suggesting the earth is flat. They do not mention that respected and highly orthodox Islamic scholars like Ibn al-Jawzi, Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim all believed the earth to be round. They also refer to a fatwa by Ibn Baaz (a follower of Wahhabism, a version […]

IslamQA: Is reading erotica permitted in Islam?

I wanted to know if it’s haram to read smut and if so what are the punishments for it. The seeking of any form of sexual pleasure outside the context of erotic love between married couples is either forbidden or in a gray area in Islamic law. The Quran says, in its description of pious […]

IslamQA: Dating and Relationships in Islam: What is Allowed and What is Not

Is dating and having relationships totally forbidden in Islam? I will start with a description of an example scenario of the way dating and relationships work in Islam, then will clarify the Islamic stance. If a woman works somewhere, and there is a man there that she likes and who likes her, and both of them […]

IslamQA: Muslims may use “God” instead of “Allah”, and why most converts to Islam should keep their pre-Islam names

They say in our doctrine that the word “God” is way different than “Allah”, and shouldn’t be said as long as the Kuffar use it. We as Muslims differ from what they came with.. Similar to what happened when Adan was first confirmed. What’s your take on that? The Saudi scholar Ibn Uthaymeen says there […]

The Early Development of Hanafi Usul al-Fiqh by Murteza Bedir

Download [PDF – 23 MB] Murteza Bedir’s PhD thesis The Early Development of Hanafi Usul al-Fiqh is an interesting study of the development of usul al-fiqh in the Hanafi school. It describes a process of slowly eliminating the freedom of intellect of the early Hanafi school as succeeding generations tried to reform the school to fit more with […]

IslamQA: Why does Allah let some people suffer so much?

When will my suffering end? it’s been long enough since I’m in emotional pain. I think suffering never ends for some people. My mother is a nicest human being anyone would ever meet on the Earth and Allah has tested her through out her life. First she got an abusive husband and because of him […]

IslamQA: Should we advise others to avoid sin if it may bother them?

Sir, mostly sins make me feel disturbed but what influences me most is the relationship between boys n girls outside marriage. I feel disgusted hearing the terms ‘boyfriend/girlfriend’. I’m part of certain Facebook groups where sometimes posts about one’s relationship comes up… Sometimes they talk about their boyfriends. It makes me sad and angry. I […]

IslamQA: On avoiding wasting time

Assalam alaykum. I have a problem with wasting time, and I always say to my self “let me just finish this episode, and then i’ll Read Quran”. I use too much time in social media, and i’m not motivated at all. I want to be motivated, so I can be exited to read Quran, and […]

IslamQA: Getting tattoos as a Muslim

Dear Mr.Ikram Hawramani Salam brother, i hope you find the question in good health. I have benefited from some of your blog post and i find that you have a poetic way of explaning things so here i am asking for your advice. To put in perspective i am 19 years old and i have […]

IslamQA: On the Arab Spring

This might not be relevant anymore, but I just want to know what are your thoughts and opinion about the Arab Spring? Personally I have a historian’s view of history; I look at society in terms of generations and centuries. So to me revolutions are never something to celebrate; they are just a violent expression […]

Why We Should Stop Using the Word “Islamophobia”

Recently the British philosopher Roger Scruton was sacked from his government position for stating in an interview that Islamophobia is a propaganda word “invented by the Muslim Brotherhood”, among other statements. The interview was intentionally redacted by the journalist to put Scruton in the worst light possible. Since then the journalist has disappeared from social […]

IslamQA: Islam and downloading cracked software (piracy)

Assalamu alaikum. What is the rule for using a free-downloaded software from the internet? Do we have to buy the original software from the publisher so that we don’t violate the copyright? Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah, I have seen no intelligent juristic voice on digital piracy, so I decided to do my own research on the […]

IslamQA: On deciding which madhhab to follow and the multi-madhhab approach

Do you hold certain school or mahdhab in Islam? If so, which one? Also, how do you pick one of them, or you don’t pick one at all and just go with what’s acceptable for you? Thank you. The concept of the madhhab is somewhat outdated because scholars are starting to have a multi-madhhab approach. […]

IslamQA: Catching a child watching pornography as a Muslim parent

What should I do if I catch my children watching pornography? I assume you were speaking of adolescents. Two things about adolescents makes it especially difficult for them to resist looking at pornography even if they know it is wrong and even if they wish to avoid it; they have poor impulse control. The brain’s […]

The two salvations: How erotic beauty is a false category of beauty

In his 2009 book Beauty, the wonderful British philosopher Roger Scruton says many insightful things about beauty. His book inspired me to create my own Islamic theory of aesthetics in which I assert that a beautiful thing is nothing other than that which brings us face-to-face with God. The reason that the most beautiful and picturesque […]

The Universal Digital Library: A Platform that Makes Digital Piracy Unnecessary, Funds Creators, and Makes eBooks, Games and Software Affordable

In my previous essay Why Digital Piracy is Ethical and Necessary I discussed why there are no proper digital libraries: publishers pretend that digital goods cannot be sold. They demand continuous rents for digital products they give to libraries, making things like ebooks costlier (and for more difficult to lend due to various licensing clauses) than printed […]

The Muslim Plan for Western Civilization: There is No Plan

Do Muslims hope to establish a World Caliphate? It is undeniable that some Muslims, including religious scholars, look forward to one day there existing a new Islamic empire that represents “true” Islam and that brings back the glory of the olden days. As is usual with fantasy-land Islam, the thinking is top-down, the caliphate has […]